


Open Door Policy

by CadetDru



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Asexual Relationship, Beholding Avatar Powers (The Magnus Archives), But also, Canon Asexual Character, Cigarettes, Compulsion, Fabric rustles, Gen, M/M, No beta we kayak like Tim, Post-Season/Series 04, Pre-Canon, Red String, Scars, Season/Series 01, Season/Series 05, Statement Fic, Time Travel Fix-It, Time travel to your own past, bum a cigarette off yourself, doors, meet yourself, prove yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:20:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,964
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26702062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CadetDru/pseuds/CadetDru
Summary: Lead-up to a disjointed statement.Statement of Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, on accidentally time traveling during the apocalypse.  Statement date variable, depending on whose timeline we're working from. Statement given directly from the subject. Statement recorded in the presence of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute in this timeline.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood & Sasha James & Tim Stoker, Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 104
Kudos: 204





	1. can't remember if they're green or they're blue

The stranger stepped out of a yellow door that had not been in the hallway a few moments before. Neither fit the new surroundings. The door that had brought him there dissolved away. He stood in the hall, carefully looking both ways as he tried to orient himself. 

The stranger was striking to look at. He had been before, a trim figure with long, dark wavy hair shot through with grey. He wore it pulled back into a severe ponytail. He was heavily scarred, his flesh burned and mutilated in a variety of ways. Underneath it all, he was still somewhat handsome. His face was relatively untouched, green eyes still seeming to be bright and clear.

He was professional according to the dress code of a dystopian nightmare. He wore a shirt too big and the wrong shade of blue for his dark complexion. He had an oiled leather bag slung across his body. 

The woman approaching him wore a soft grey sweater and faded jeans. This was not the dress code of a dystopian timeline, just a relaxed division of a small-ish company. She had long dark hair, thick glasses, a suspicious smile, and a stack full of file folders in her arms. "Hi, can I help you?" she said as she approached. She was wearing low heels, and he had to stare up at her. 

"Yes, I hope you can," the stranger said. He took care with his words, modulating his voice just right. 

"You look a little bit out of place," she said in a stage whisper. Her eyes kept jumping from scar to scar. It was rude, and she didn't seem like the sort of woman to be impolite.

"Can you tell me where Jonathan Sims is?" There was an odd reverberation behind his words as he asked, a kind of static in the air. 

The woman's eyes glassed over, just for a moment. "He was in his office, but he just stepped out. He should be back shortly. I hate to say that you look like you've seen a ghost here, especially when that literally might be why you're here, but... Do you need to see him specifically or is it just a general statement? There's three of us here, archival assistants. We're a fairly well-trained crew."

Her honesty was at an angle that the stranger hadn't been expecting. She was still holding so much back, concealing so much truth behind her words. People were normally more straightforward when he asked a direct question. "I need Jon, specifically, I'm afraid. It's a personal and professional matter." He dropped his intense gaze down to his slightly scuffed shoes. 

"Of course," she said, meaning nothing of the sort. "I'll have Martin look after you." She nodded back the way that she had come. "It's his specialty."

"And you can't have strangers wandering around unsupervised?" the man Jack said.

"That too!" She admitted. "And I'm off, so it'll be down to Martin."

"I didn't catch your name," he said. He could have known it as easily as looking at her, but he wanted to break himself of the habit. 

"Sasha."

His eyes widened and he worked to keep his face from falling. "Sasha. Yes. I'm Jack. Jack Sims."

"I had a feeling that was your surname," she said, dark eyes twinkling. She hadn't said anything about him looking like a twisted copy of her own boss. He'd almost thought he'd gone back further than that. Instead, he'd hit Sasha on a particularly jovial day. They walked down to an office together.

She knocked twice, opening as she did. Her knock was an announcement only, not asking for permission. "Martin, Mr Sims has a guest I should you need to meet. Jack Sims, this is Martin."

This was a slightly larger than average man in an incredibly bright orange shirt that clashed with his curly russet brown hair. He was blushing, his default state as far as the stranger knew. "Oh. Hi, wow... I'm Martin, like she said. Have a seat, please."

"Nice to meet you," Jack said, eyes lighting up with pure delight. Martin seemed so young, shy and nervous, so new. He wanted to hug the man and ask to hear one of his terrible poems. 

Sasha went back the way that she came. Her footfall seemed a little more deliberate, a little quicker. She was all but giggling as she ran to look for someone. Jack figured she was seeking out Tim with tales of whatever she thought she'd stumbled across. 

"Sasha said you'd be able to look after me until Jon's available?" Jack said. 

"Shouldn't be too hard." Martin smiled. "What brings you to the Institute?"

"My nephew," the stranger supplied. "I'm Jon's dear old Uncle Jack."

"Oh! I can see the resemblance."

"I'm the distinguished-looking one. That's how you can tell us apart," Jack said, with a wry smile. The lines on his face were aligned perfectly with Jon's own, in the way that only time and a highly specific temperament could line up to. 

Martin traced them with his eyes, storing the information away. He wasn't looking at any of the obvious differences. Jack knew not to underestimate him. Martin laughed, nervous more than amused. What he saw wasn't reassuring him. 

"I've been having what I can only consider to be paranormal encounters. I've heard that giving a statement helps coalesce the thoughts. Have you ever given one...?"

"Oh, no, not me," Martin stammered, his blush growing deeper. 

"No creepy-crawlies in the night?" Martin simply shook his head. "Good," the stranger said, letting out a heavy sigh. "I highly recommend against it."

"At least you've got family who will...well, listen if not understand."

The stranger's face fell. Sasha and Martin had seemed quietly receptive, willing to take the information in and let the story unfold on its own timeline (as it were). Jon wouldn't see things the same way. Jon would simply Not Believe in any of it. And punching Jon would just make the assistants upset, even if they agreed with the general idea. 

"I'm sorry," Martin said. "I shouldn't have said anything, I don't know your relationship with Jon."

"No, no, it's just... I'm recently separated." It was a cheap shot, a half-truth. He was separated because his boyfriend hadn't walked out the door with him, was somewhere in some corridor. Reframing it as a sad tale of romance would blind Martin for as long as Jon needed him to be distracted. Jack was going to exploit it. "I've not been taking it well. And, not entirely unrelated, I'm having to turn to Jon to help with some spooky nonsense. So, I'm putting a lot of hope on my interaction with 'Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute.'"

"You sounded just like him," Martin said, another fact he was adding to some list in his head. "Right, well...would you like some tea?"

The stranger's green eyes lit up. "Oh! Yes. That'd be lovely."

"How d'you take it?" Martin asked.

The stranger's face fell. "...I honestly don't know. Tea just sort of happens near me. I've been spoiled. Sorry, you don't care. I'm sure however you make tea will be fine."

Martin left the stranger calling himself Jack sat alone for a few moments. The stranger tapped his fingers on the desk, hesitating just a moment before retrieving a notebook and pen from the bag now loose at his side. He ran down a checklist he'd written there, idly tapping on scars as he thought of them. He flipped through the pages, tracing a hasty timeline. 

"Where am I? When am I?" he said, in a completely different tone of voice, different pitch and different accent than he'd spoken with during his short interactions with the assistants. "I need help, that's the whole point, I can't keep this straight. I can't even figure out what I should and shouldn't know by now. I can't Know anything, either. I don't want to alert anyone to my presence. More than I already have."

He frowned and moved his notebook. A tape recorder was on the desk before him. It hadn't been there before. It hadn't directly come out of his bag. It was on, recording away. "I wasn't talking to you." He hit stop, and put the recorder into his bag with an untold number of others. He threw his notebook in after it. 

Clearing his throat, he tried to speak again with the modulation of voice he'd originally used, "I just need to talk to Jon."

"Hello," a man said, managing to take up the entire doorway. "Thought I heard Jon in here." He was wearing an incredibly vibrant patterned button down shirt and a glowing grin. Jack knew for a fact that this was the "hot" one, and could almost see it with the distance of years. 

The dystopian stranger gave the only answer he could: "Hi, I'm Jack."

"Tim." He leaned over the desk so they could shake hands. "Bumped into Sasha and she said you were in here. I see the family resemblance. Here to see your..."

"Nephew, I think I said."

"Didn't know Jon had any family around here," Tim said. He had worked with Jon for a very, very long time and amassed quite a bit of false information that he thought was knowledge.

"I had to travel a bit. Haven't been in London for quite a while."

Martin returned, without tea. "Jon's in his office, Jack. I'll bring tea for both of you in." He frowned at Tim. 

Martin led him down the hall with a silent smile. Jack hesitated when they got to the door.

"Jon, Jack is here to see you," Martin said. He seemed to think that was going to mean something. 

Jon sat frozen behind his desk as the stranger was ushered in. He had shorter hair, fitted clothes, slightly less gaunt than the stranger. Brown eyes instead of green, none of the more obvious scars. He had all the differences that Sasha saw, the similarities that Martin saw. It made Jack a little dizzy just to look at him. This was an old photograph from a happier time, frowning from his own desk. 

"Hello, my boy, et cetera. It's been too long since I've seen your face," Jack said as Martin walked away. "I think it should be obvious who I am, but I've never liked the obvious answer. I could tell you something only you'd know, dredge up some old trauma and throw it in your face. Some dreadful secret you've never told anyone."

"Well?" Jon said. "If that's the traditional method then do it."

"It hurts to think about it too much," Jack said. He winced as the list presented itself. "I'm a little fragile at the moment, long journey. And you could just accuse me of reading your mind."

"Hardly," Jon said.

"I'll explain when Martin brings our tea."

They waited in silence. Jon frowned. Jack just enjoyed the silence.

"Tea time!"

Jon bristled. "We are in the middle--" Jon said.

"Thank you, Martin," Jack said, trying to deflect attention. He took a sip. "This is perfect."

"Sorry to intrude, I know you have a lot to talk about but I did promise and I didn't want it to get too cold." He gave an extra smile to Jack than Jon clocked. "Don't want to keep you waiting any longer than you have to."

"Thank you," Jack said instead of voicing any of his concerns. Was that a time travel joke? Was Martin already that comfortable with the idea?

"You've made friends," Jon said.

"He's sweet." Jack tapped a tape recorder that was resting on Jon's desk. "Have you had any statements that you had to record using this?"

"Where did that come from?" Jon said.

"It just happens. Have you had to use one?"

"The Gillespie one," Jon said.

"Christ, is it that early?" The man calling himself Jack pulled out his notepad. "I wasn't expecting this." He looked up at Jon. "This is good, it means so much can be stopped. On the other hand, it's bad because our allies have less reason to believe me." Jack sighed. "There's nothing for it. I'll give you my statement."

**Statement of Jonathan Sims, the Archivist, on accidentally time traveling during the apocalypse. Statement date variable, depending on whose timeline we're working from. Statement given directly from the subject. Statement recorded in the presence of Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist of the Magnus Institute in this timeline**.

_Statement Begins_

This is the beginning, back when I got a job I was never qualified for. There was someone handpicked to be Gertrude's successor. Since she was murdered, it's probably for the best that the idea of a competent archivist was abandoned. Fortunately, the real replacement has agreed to stick around. Unfortunately, that means she's stuck here too.

The unofficial job is just 'sacrificial lamb,' and I was imminently qualified for that. They wanted someone who was marked. My mind was already there, and you can see from my scars that they took me the rest of the way. They knew about losing my parents, about Mr. Spider. Have you ever heard them say 'knock, knock' just like that? Seen the smile on Bouchard's face? The institute knows.

They bring in the broken, the marked. The ones who fight them, who are whole, they get sacrificed too. No one gets out alive. No one gets out whole. We're all spiders trapped in the web, as much as I hate to admit it. 

I'm not human. I have more eyes than the ones you can say, and they are all green, Jonathan. I want to be human, but I didn't fall in love until I was inhuman. If stopping everything from ever happening means going back to how I should have been, it has to be worth it. 

I never meant to time travel. I never thought it was possible. A door opened, and I didn't know what was behind it. You wouldn't understand how appealing that was. I don't know if time here is a loop or a line a branching or a feverish coma dream. I don't know if there will be any way to show that I've had any kind of effect. If it was later on, then I might be able to see the effect in others.

I didn't think I was entering alone until I came out into the hallway alone. I can't keep doing things alone. My hope is that my partner will be along shortly, but I don't know when that'll be. I need help, I need strength, I need my last connection to humanity. I need the one person who's loved me enough to go deeper into the web and then I helped me pull both of us out. 

If I don't ever stop being human, will I even need that connection any more? Will it be possible? I should heal these scars, even if it makes new ones. So maybe I won't know what I've missed. It's not like we had any real time together. 

I've travelled through time, and I need to get back. I think I know where the divergence was, and I'm hoping your staff can help me get back on the correct path. So, we're going to find out how much of an effect one man can have on the timeline. And see if I heal my skin or break my heart.

_Statement Ends_

"Was it really necessary to give that as a statement?" Jon said, glaring at Jack. 

"Old habits die hard," Jack said. "Can I have a cigarette?"

"Jesus," Jon said, starting at that. "At least your lips moved."

Jack laughed. "Right, sorry. That's a fresh one for you, here and now. I'm not part of the anglerfish, I just didn't bring any. I thought I had quit smoking."

"By all means, let me lead you back into bad habits."

They walked out of Jon's office, one expression of concern and confusion copied across two faces. 

A man in an impeccable suit, perfect hair, and a deep scowl intercepted them: "Jon, who's this?" he said, ignoring the stranger as best he could. 

The stranger answered him nevertheless. "Jack Sims, stranger in a strange land. And you must be Elias Bouchard." The static came into his voice as a recorder in his bag clicked on. "Don't you know me?"

"No, I don't," Elias said. "I know what you look like and what you've told them but you're an utter blank to me." He closed his eyes as the static stopped, gave an unnecessary shudder. "Remarkable. I'll leave you to your work, Jon." He went back the way he came, back to his office. 

"What was that?" Jon said, when he assumed that Elias was out of earshot. 

"We'll get to it," Jack promised. "I'll need a cork board and a whiteboard and red string and a few dozen pushpins. First, bad habits."


	2. see these eyes so green

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Statement of Jonathan Sims on the impossibility of time travel. Statement recorded directly from subject. 
> 
> Statement Begins, etc.

It's not impostor syndrome if it's just incompetence. Jon didn't know which one he'd been experiencing. He watched as his melted double worked to construct a list, reciting aloud as he went to keep it all straight. 

"The Beholding, the Spiral (what brought me here), the Lonely (I told you that I was separated), the Web (you know that one), the Corruption (these scars), the Desolation (my hand), the Hunt (my throat here), the Flesh, the Slaughter, the Buried, the Stranger, the Vast, the Dark, the End."

"The end as in the end of all of this or as its own disastrous entity?" Jon asked, wanting to show that he was listening. 

"Disastrous," Jack said.

"Ah," Jon said.

Jack started to go through them again. "The distinctions only matter because people think they matter. It's all the same thing, all the struggle for destruction and pain. You don't need to fight to win, you just need to prevent people from getting hurt."

"Personal or global?"

"Everything's personal," Jack said. "The Lonely was the easiest to fight but that was... the hardest lead up, just because it was so personal. If I didn't have..." Jack trailed off. 

"What?" Jon said.

"Someone to save, someone to fight for and someone else to fight with.

"And the Buried. I needed that anchor, that reason, and now..." He twisted the string in his hands. "Helen and/or Michael needs to open up another door so either I can go home or I can get some real help."

"Doors being...the Spiral?" Jon said.

"You are paying attention," Jack beamed. 

"So, you're working with the Spiral?"

"Not working with. Currently at the mercy of. Helen and/or Michael led me astray in the corridors. Not quite working together so much as being the butt of someone else's joke."

"So which of these are friendly?" Jon asked. 

"None of them. They're all awful. Some are wild, some are feral, none are tame. It's all just... terrible and terrifying. That's the whole point."

They were interrupted by a loud throat clearing from the open doorway. "Would either of you like a sandwich?" Martin asked.

"What time is it?" Jack asked.

"Apparently past lunchtime," Jon said. "Yes, Martin, thank you. We should eat."

"You should give a statement first," Jack said to Jon.

Jon frowned, because there was now nothing that he would like to do more. A recording wasn't any kind of food, unless that was all on the long list of things that Jack didn't know how to tell him about. 

"Jon will be right with you," Jack promised Martin. "Just give us a minute."

**Statement of Jonathan Sims on the impossibility of time travel. Statement recorded directly from subject.**

_Statement Begins, etc._

I can hear you in my brain, the static buzzing away so there's nothing left but the truth. I can feel fuzzy fingers, pliers pulling out just the right words. If you're one potential future, then I don't want that. 

It's not that I want to avoid the pain, the obvious scars and the less obvious slant to your body. You've been hurt, many times. If this is what you've done to people, then I can see why.

I see what you're trying to set out here, in other people's space. Dangerous things, monsters, things that go bump in the dark. I see it, and I can almost believe it, but I don't believe you. 

You keep dropping hints about this lost love of yours. I'm guessing that they're dead, or that they left you, or that you left them because you're a selfish prick who thinks he's acting for the greater good. I want to avoid that too, avoid inflicting some poor soul with what you think love is. 

You want me to know who it is. You want me to keep them safe. You want me to fall in love. You want me to make better choices than you did, but you can't decide what they are. You still want to be the sort of person who would die for love, you just don't want to follow through. 

I don't like you. It's nothing personal, I'm afraid. I don't like me. I don't see where that got better anywhere along the way. 

None of this I would have kept hidden if you weren't... what did you call this? Compelling me. Self-hatred isn't something you need to compel out of me. A glass of whiskey or black coffee and I'd give the same speech. 

This is all preamble to my thoughts on time travel. You believe you've done it, and I don't. You believe that you can change the past, and I don't. I think we're on a track and all doomed. 

I can't tell if focusing on time travel was your whole plan, or if this was just a whim. You still haven't explained how you got here. You keep brandishing your mysterious but tragic backstory, my doomed future that can only be averted if I just listen to you.

I don't believe you anymore. I believe that you're Jonathan Sims, and it hurts to know that as such a certainty. I just don't believe everything else that you tell me. Shouldn't you have more stories? If you're changing the timeline anyway, can you warn me away from all the ways you've been hurt?

Or is this your timeline? Do you remember it from my point of view? Do you expect it all to fail miserably because you've gone down this path before? You said it was too early, how can that be?

I don't believe in time travel.

I don't believe my own eyes.

I don't believe in these fears, I don't believe what you've tried to insinuate that the Magnus Institute is up to, I don't believe that they can read my mind but not yours so you have to give me glimpses but keep me in the dark. 

I don't have anyone that I would love enough to die for or let them die for me. I might die to protect a lot of people, though, and I think that's what you actually did. Got hurt for the aggregate. Personal isn't the same as important. God only knows what made you think that you'd be a good martyr. 

Right now, I apparently am stopping Martin from getting his lunch because I've been swept up in his sudden need to take care of you. That is as much of an impact as you've had on any of the lives here. Time for another cigarette, for something to eat, wouldn't you say?

_Statement Ends_

Jon blinked as the static rolled off of him. "What was that?"

Jack stretched. "Compulsion from the Beholding. The Eye needs to see the truth."

"Elias didn't seem to know that feeling."

"It's different for different... servants? Archivists sure usually more polite than me. Elias knows things. He knows all your little traumas, that's why I said it wouldn't help prove anything. He just doesn't know me." Jack smiled. "Martin's waiting for you."

"Thank you for your permission," Jon scowled. "Don't go anywhere."

Jon followed Martin to the break room where pre-purchased sandwiches awaited him. 

"So," Martin said. "How are you doing?"

"I'm confused," Jon said.

"That makes sense," Martin said with a chuckle. 

"Didn't you already eat lunch? How are you hungry again?"

Martin frowned, running his finger on the rim of his mug. His voice was even when he did speak. "Okay, well, first of all, I'm actually not eating, just sort of supervising that you do eat so you don't have some kind of hypoglycemic episode."

"I don't need a babysitter," Jon said.

Martin moved forward. "Second of all, some people can eat twice in the same week, even the same day."

Jon shook his head. "That can't be right."

"And third of all, lunch was kind of a pretext to get you away from Jack so I could make sure that he's not stealing your life force or something."

"Thank you, I think," Jon said. "If your double from his timeline comes, would you trust him?"

"If he's really me... sure. I'm trustworthy." Martin smiled. "Doubt that's who's coming through the next magical door, unless Jack's told you more about his work in the coming years."

"He hasn't told me anything personal."

"Must be scared."

"If you name a fear, it gives it more power. If you're going to lose someone... but then you go back in time, and you haven't lost them yet..." Martin trailed off.

"A lot of experience with time travel?"

"Or with not talking."

"I find that hard to believe. You always seem to have something to say."

Martin didn't respond.

"You should talk to him," Jon said. "I mean it. Someone besides me should. I just want to punch his smug face."

"I can see that. I mean, difficult to see your own face on someone who's had such different experiences."

"And you can see why someone would want to punch me."

"I'd rather not answer that one, boss."

Jon finished his sandwich in surly silence. 

Martin trailed behind him as they returned to his office. Jon threw the door open.

"I need to show this to the team," Jack said.

"I'm sure they'll love and understand it just as much as I do," Jon lied. "I was just telling Martin how I thought the two of you should have a nice long chat while I get some actual work done."

"I need Tim and Sasha. Martin alone isn't enough."

"Martin, get them," Jon said. 

Martin was back with them fast enough to make Jon's head spin.

"What's up, time travel boss?" Tim said.

Jack ran them down the fears and the entities, making. A little too much eye contact with certain individuals on specific fears, pointedly looking away on others. The three of them were interested in his complicated story, but also in the story that he wasn't telling. Sasha and Tim simultaneously asked about the Stranger. 

Jack took a deep ragged breath. "Tim... Tim, you've seen it."

"Yeah, I was getting that impression, thanks."

"Sasha, I don't think you have yet..."

"What can we do?" Sasha said, interrupting him.

"You all need to quit if you can. The Magnus Institute chooses employees very carefully. The longer you're here, the longer you serve the Eye."

"Isn't that better than serving the Web or the Lonely?" Martin asked.

Jack winced. "Better is comparative. The three of you might still be able to get out."

"All of us have been working at the Institute," Jon said. "Isn't that enough to trap us here?"

"We can't quit," Sasha said. 

"You've tried?" Tim asked her. 

"Let's just move along under the assumption that everything that Jack is telling us is true and also it explains some fundamental things. So, we're stuck here serving the Eye. Then what?"

"Doesn't that mean we're safe from the others?" Martin asked. "Or some kind of protection, some armor that keeps the other powers from hurting us as hard?"

Jack actually laughed. "You're not safe. The Eye wants knowledge, and will sacrifice you over and over to get it. You never were safe, you'll never be safe. All you can hope for is knowledge of what hurt you and even that won't be enough to avoid the exact same kind of pain if it happens again."

"Okay, so knowledge," Sasha said. "Let's work on that."

"Can we ask you? Those scars, the small ones, how did you get them?"

"Worms that burrow under the flesh," Jack said. 

"Jesus," Jon said.

"You can dig them out," Jack said. "They're vulnerable to CO2. A corkscrew is actually the best improvisational tool to get them out." Jack smiled as he touch some of the scars with his unburnt hand. 

"So, you did learn something there. You learned how to fight these worms."

"I didn't learn it. In this scenario, I was the swooning damsel in distress. Hence the scars."

"Well, whoever rescued you, they learned how and taught you how," Martin said. "It's possible to overcome these things."

"Right, we just need your rescuer," Tim said. 

"He gave me a jar of ashes when we destroyed the whole colony." Jack said, dreamily.

"Where can we find this miracle worker?" Jon asked, reminding his team that he was there. 

Jack waved a hand at Martin. "Go for it."

"I'm sorry, I'm just..." Martin said, not sure how to apologize for participating. 

"No, it was you. You figured it all out. And now that I've laid it out for you, you'll have this knowledge without having to earn it."

"But that's the goal. You don't want us to have to go through these things."

"I don't know how to stop them. I don't even know how to avoid them. I just know them. That's all I can give any of you, just knowledge. You'll have to adapt it for yourself."

"Sounds like we already did it once," Martin said. 

"Generous of you, mate," Tim said. Sasha snickered.

"The hand, then," Jon said.

"Don't shake hands with beings made of fire."

"I...wouldn't," Jon said. 

"And yet," Jack said, raising the hand. 

"Okay, that sounds like a lot of different traumas that we're making you relive all at once," Martin said, crossing the room towards Jack. He moved his hand towards Jack's injured hand, not quite touching him.

"Something like that." Jack pulled him in for a hug. 

Martin gently put an arm around Jack's shoulder. "I think we kind of broke him," Martin said, trying to make eye contact with the past version of the man he was still holding. He let his arm fall away. Jack reluctantly followed suit. 

"From the looks of him, that doesn't seem hard," Jon said, a slight smile playing across his features. 

"Jon," Tim warned.

"Don't kick the new puppy," Sasha said. 

"Is there some place that he can lie down?" Martin asked.

"I'm right here," Jack said, gesturing widely to try to physically contact as many of them as possible. 

"Do you know of some place you can lie down?" Martin said. 

"I'm not sure when I set up..."

"The cot in document storage," Jon finished. "It's there."

"I'll leave a note if I go. Or if I get killed. It'll probably read the same either way."

"Thank you, I will be worried otherwise.Just stick it somewhere in that web you wove." Jon said, waving.

Some of the color drained out of Jack's face. "It's not supposed to be a web."

Martin led Jack away. "They make a nice couple," Tim said before they got out of earshot. 

"But I'm not allowed to joke?" Jon said, not pouting.

"Don't be jealous of yourself," Sasha said. 

"He's just the broken-in version," Tim said. They refocused on the red string and scribbles. "This has to mean something." 

"Research time," Sasha said with a grin.


	3. linger on your pale blue eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The cot that Jon had hidden away in document storage made the whole area very homey. Martin helped make sure Jack was settled and safe and surrounded by tape recorders in an orderly line. "Cute little things," Martin said, lining them up so Jack wouldn't trip on them as he moved around. 
> 
> "Not everything is 'adorable', I keep..." Jack cleared his throat and kicked off his shoes. "This is just your aesthetic, I know. Take one, record...whatever you like. Their population replenishes." He took off the blue button-down he wore over a faded black T-shirt. It exposed more scars on his arms, on his neck, slight tattoos of eye that Martin wasn't sure were really tattoos.

The cot that Jon had hidden away in document storage made the whole area very homey.Martin helped make sure Jack was settled and safe and surrounded by tape recorders in an orderly line. "Cute little things," Martin said, lining them up so Jack wouldn't trip on them as he moved around.

"Not everything is 'adorable', I keep..." Jack cleared his throat and kicked off his shoes. "This is just your aesthetic, I know. Retro and cluttered. Take one, record...whatever you like. Their population replenishes."He took off the blue button-down he wore over a faded black T-shirt. It exposed more scars on his arms, on his neck, slight tattoos of eye that Martin wasn't sure were really tattoos.

"That shade of blue doesn't really suit you," Martin said, focusing on the shirt nuthatch Jack was no longer wearing. 

"Neither does green, but here we are." Jack cleared his throat. "Would you like it? Looks about your size."

"No, I really don't like that color," Martin said. He took a deep breath and a shot in the dark."Is that why I gave it to you?"

Jack didn't meet his gaze."I stole it from you. I'm a bit of a scavenger. I think you called me a magpie once."

"Jack... Jon," Martin said.

"Yes?" the stranger said.

"I'm not a complete fool," Martin said. "When did I die?"

Jack laughed hoarsely."You didn't die, I did.It worked out the same, though.You were a ghost for a long time..." he trailed off. "It all gets a bit confused."

"I'm sorry for your loss," Martin said. "Okay, lie down time, not... not spiraling time."

Jack frowned. "The Spiral?"

"Sorry.There's a finite supply of words in the English language that we use to describe a variety of situations."

"The spiral has the corridors, it has my...my life."

"Would it help if I gave you a statement?"

"No," Jack said, recoiling. "Please, no, don't offer me that."

Martin frowned. "Sorry, I was just trying to help."

"I know, but I am exhausted and I can only take so much of your attentions without..." Jack stopped abruptly. 

"Listen, subjective time, when was the last time that you slept?" Martin asked. 

"I slept when I was dead."

"That's...not super reassuring," Martin said

Jack sighed. "Please go. I promise, I'll sleep, just...please go." He laid down and pulled a blanket over him, turning to face the wall just so he wouldn't be facing Martin.

"I'll wash this shirt, it needs it," Martin said, because he didn't know what to apologize for.. "Good night."

"Good night."

He walked out towards his own office, folding up the shirt as small as he could so he could stuff it away along with the tape recorder.He kept accidentally hitting the record button.It kept seeming to get stuck when he tried to stop it.He casually put the recorder and shirt on his desk before checking on the others.

"Put him down for a nap?" Jon asked. 

Martin smiled."Looked like he hadn't slept in years."

"That might be literally true. We should all get back to work.Jack identified some less difficult cases that we can still work on while he rests.These should still give us information for the..."

"Conspiracy board?" Martin said.

"We are deliberately not calling it that," Sasha said. "So, are we going to talk about the elephant in the room?"

The tape recorder on Martin's desk clicked on. 

"Time travel Jon is hot," Tim said.

Jon frowned.

"That...isn't the right elephant," Sasha said slowly.

"Jack, we're calling him Jack," Martin said.

"Also, not the right elephant," Sasha said.

"We're all going to die, depending on how time works," Martin said, neatly stacking papers."Well, everyone dies eventually.Really, the best that anyone can hope for is a peaceful death with as little pain as possible. It doesn't sound like anyone of us will be getting that, instead of..."

"...painful deaths much sooner than previously anticipated," Sasha finished."Right.If we believe him, then we're all fucked."

"And Jack is hot," Tim said.

"I'm not sure that's true," Jon said. "Take a nondescript person, add a variety of scars and mutilations, and you come away with somebody that I'd not describe as hot."

"You're not starting from the right base material," Sasha said hesitantly.

"You're almost hot," Tim interpreted. "It would be weird and wrong for us to leer at you or harbor secret crushes or whatever, but Jack is practically fair game."

Martin shot daggers.

"Except how he isn't, and that wasn't what I meant," Sasha said. 

"Did I mention the rumor that I accidentally started that Elias ranked potential archivist candidates based on their subjective attractiveness?" Tim asked Sasha. 

"No, you did not, and I wish that were still true," Sasha said with a shudder. "Although, if half of what Jack says it true, I wish it was something that shallow and everyday horrifying."

"He's a completely different person from a different timeline," Martin grumbled. "I hope that he's right and that his actions can change some of his own past, but that doesn't change the fact that he is basically a stranger who fell into our office. We shouldn't be objectifying him or comparing him to who he says he was in the past."

"Scars aren't sexy," Jon said.

"That...is a different topic," Martin said, and blushed. 

"I don't know," Sasha said. "This is a kind of every day, gossipy creepiness. And we can even include Jon this time."

"Unlike the other times that you considered it?" Jon snorted. 

"Exactly," Tim said with a comfortable leer.Jon just shook his head and laughed.A lull hit as they individually reviewed. 

"Did you...take his shirt?" Jon asked Martin ever so casually. 

"It's mine," Martin said, trying to make the whole thing seem more innocent. He failed. "Or, I guess it will be? I don't own anything in that color.He took it from his Martin. In the future. I promised to bring him another one tomorrow."

"I wonder if he kept things of all of us when we died," Tim said. "When we will die.When we're going to die except he's stopping it by being here."

"Or making it worse," Jon said.

"Jack said he died and I became a ghost," Martin said.

"Are you sure it was those actions in that order?" Jon said brusquely.

"He seemed pretty definite on it."

"Oh, sure, I put in the effort and then you get hot Jack once you're dead," Tim said in what Martin hoped was a fake huff. 

"What effort?" Sasha asked. 

Tim remained focused on Martin. "Not fair to expect me to compete with you as well as this amazing, unnamed and ungendered hero who would die and/or kill for Jack."

"Lucky hero," Sasha said softly. She smiled apologetically at Jon and shrugged. 

"I think..." Martin started and stopped.He restarted: "I'm trying to make sense of it, but I think..."

"What?" Tim prompted.

"He really doesn't like me much.He doesn't mind if I do something for him, but he doesn't seem to like me.He said he was separated, right?"

"...no," Tim said.

"You couldn't," Sasha said. "He couldn't."

"I refuse to follow," Jon said primly.

"Just a theory," Martin said, even though they all recognize a kernel of truth there.The tape recorder on his desk clicked off.He hadn't remembered it being on.

They sorted through what had been identified as safe and unsafe."Alright, quitting time," Sasha announced, well past a reasonable hour.

"Boss man, you need one of us to walk you out?" Tim said."Can't stay here, you might kill your double."

"That was in one of the files, right?" Sasha said.

"Yep, 0130315A and B," Tim said.

"I haven't read those," Jon said.

"You shouldn't. It'll give you bad ideas," Tim said.

"Drinks anyone?" Sasha suggested.

"No," Jon said emphatically.

"No, thank you," Martin said, much kinder as was naturally expected. He was the kind one.

"Martin, don't let him kill our boy Jack," Tim said. 

"No one's hurting Jack while I'm around," Martin said. "Or Jon." It wasn't really an afterthought, just as a joke.

"In that order?" Jon asked, taking the bait.

Martin shrugged.Tim laughed as he and Sasha walked out the door. 

"We should pack it up for the night, too," Martin said. "The world will still be out to get us in the morning. You at least have some guarantee of making it through." A click from his desk, the tape recorder presumably turning itself on, again.

"He isn't... I wouldn't... that's not the sort of thing that I'd think of."

Martin did his best to add in the missing pieces of Jon's sentences. "Are you trying to say that I'm not your type?"

"I have no type. I have no interests. It's..."

"It's not me, it's you?" Martin suggested.

Jon laughed, just a little. "Yes, exactly."

"That's alright, I don't..care, I guess." Martin shrugged and looked away. "I'm sorry about earlier.This is all bad enough already, but for Tim to keep harping on about Jack."

"He was just doing it to get a rise out of me."

"...no. Jon, no, he wasn't.You do know that, right?"

"He's been saying things like that for ages."

"Because he means it and because you're safe.You might not have a type but you are other people's type. And they know you'd never expect anything to come of it.You're a safe person to make those kinds of jokes about, because if you ever did take someone up on it, it would be like they'd hit the jackpot."

"And time travel Jon is hot."

Martin nodded. "Jack is definitely hot.Sorry.But it is true."

"You don't know if he's safe," Jon said.

"No one would want him to be. The scars are supposed to mean that he's dangerous, that's his appeal. He's you, but not you.He's not interested in me either," Martin said. "That doesn't change anything. I wouldn't expect him... expect you... to come back in time and decide to hook up with a subordinate, everything else aside."

"'Hook up?'" Jon echoed. 

"Good night, Jon," Martin said."I'll see you in the morning." He picked up the shirt and tape recorder, making sure that the latter was off. He walked out, not checking that Jon was behind him but also hesitating each step of the way to make sure that he was.


	4. green, green are her eyes

In the morning, Jack was in Jon's office and Jon was at Tim's desk when the assistants came in.Jack had thrown a deep green cardigan over the same black clothes he’d worn the day before, that he’d clearly slept in.The green brought his eyes, which clashed completely with his natural coloring.The sweater wasn’t quite as big on him as the shirt that Martin had taken.

The rest of them had stepped up their usual dress.Jon had a sweater vest over his button-down shirt, Sasha wore an ankle length shirt instead of jeans, and Tim was wearing a more subdued shirt with hardly a pattern at it.  They were subconsciously showing up Jack, or just trying to impress him. 

"You seem in a better mood,” Tim said to Jack. 

“That’s my sweater,” Sasha said coolly.

“I borrowed it,” Jack said. He rolled his neck. "I was glad to find it."

“You’re welcome to it,” Sasha said, crossing her arms over her chest.

She and Tim went to resume the stack sorting that they'd been doing the day before, checking in with Jon on his own progress. 

Martin was the last in, trying to carry five paper cups of tea simultaneously.He was dressed the same as ever, apparently not interested in physical impressions when acts of service could do instead. He started by putting a cup down on Jon's desk. "Good morning, Jack."

"Mmm, thank you," Jack said, reflexively picking up the cup like he expected it to be there. He took a sip."This is just how I like it, how did you know?" He followed Martin into the assistant's now rather crowded space.Martin passed out the tea to everyone else."Martin's here, tea follows, it's officially morning."

"What an interestingly subjective view of time," Sasha said.She sipped on her own tea. Martin shot her a look.She smiled. "Thank you, Martin."

Jack was frowning when Martin looked back. "Yes, but it really wasn't necessary. We could have managed without this." He stood up straighter, his whole body drawn in tighter. He was a mirror image of Jon's own stance. 

"Is something wrong?"

"Everything's wrong.I can't fix this alone." 

"You have us," Martin said.

"Yes, and you're all lovely people but you're just... not who I want. I'm glad you're all here, healthy and whole, but..."

Jon picked up the sentence where Jack left off. "But you don't want to interfere with our work just in case you make things worse?"

"Something like that," Jack said. "There are some things that aren't worth losing, that might endanger everything if I do lose it. It was the recorders, the tapes themselves, not the rib."

"Whose rib?" Tim asked.

"Mine," Jack said, tapping in his side where it seemed to be a little less defined than the other side. "That I could do without, but what if it was necessary to climb out?"

"Climb out of what?" Tim asked. "What are you talking about? You keep dancing around these things..."

"What if I'm not allowed to tell you? What if it ruins everything sooner than it already was?"

"What's wrong?" Martin asked.  "What happened last night?"

“I’ve got good news and bad news,” Jack said. “The good news is that I didn't dream.”

“Congratulations?” Martin said.

“My dreams are horrible nightmares for me and others that plagued my death and haunted me even into the apocalypse.” Jack sipped his tea.

“And you had insomnia before, anyway,” Martin said, glancing at Jon who was pointedly ignoring the conversation. Jon stared at Martin. “Well, more sincere congratulations.”

Sasha cleared her throat. “You said it was good news... Is there bad news?”

“No door opened that I saw unless I slept through it, my neck hurts from that cot, and I don't remember any of this from this Jon's point of view so time doesn't work the way that I want it to.”

“Didn't think that cot would be too terribly comfortable for a full night’s sleep,” Jon said.

“A full night...” Jack said to Jon. “I knew someone who slept on it for months, at your suggestion. My suggestion.”

“When do I turn into you?”

“When I die,” Jack said. “I think that’s the clearest line between us. It gave me insight I never wanted to have."

“Remind me not to die," Jon muttered to no one in particular.

“I should hope that isn’t necessary," Martin said, stepping up to be that no one.

“Why would someone have to sleep in the Archives?” Sasha asked.

“I couldn’t do it,” Martin said.  


Jack frowned. “There was a siege,” Jack said. “...I should've taken him in.” Jack rolled his neck ineffectively. “I’ll apologize again the next time that I see him. At least that specific problem won’t happen down this path.”

"Was that the worst?" Tim asked. 

"No, but it was the first that I know was my fault after this point. The first that set me down the path to...this." Jack waved a hand over his body. "From...that." He waved towards Jon. "These smaller scars should be gone now, but they're not."

"Those are the least sexy ones," Tim allowed.

Jack ignored him. "But they're still here, so I'm not from this timeline. This is something else." 

Martin shrugged. “So, you don't remember, say, any incredible inappropriate group conversations about subjective and objective attractiveness?”

Jack stared at him. “...no.”

“Oh, good,” Martin said, surreptitiously looking at Sasha as obviously as possible.

“What are these apocalyptic nightmares?” Jon asked, giving up the pretense that he wasn’t part of the conversation.

“I haven't had them yet,” Jack said. “You haven't caused them yet.”

Jon slammed down the stack of papers in his hands. “I'm not sure I can cope with constantly being blamed in advance for--”

“You'll learn,” Jack said. 

“Or he won’t because we’re fixing it,” Sasha said. “Assuming you can contain your self-hatred to just one Jonathan Sims?”

“Yes, I’m sorry.”

“Apologize to him, not her,” Martin said.

“I am present,” Jon snapped.

“Exactly,” Martin said. “Jack, apologize to Jon.”

“Who died and put you in charge?” Jack asked. Jon didn’t put the question into words, just stared at Martin.

“You from the sound of it.” Martin said.

Sasha laughed, a harsh and bitter sound. “I give up,” she said to herself.

Jack didn’t laugh. He was focused on some fixed point that no one else could see, his hands stuffed into the pockets of the cardigan he’s stolen. He managed to pull out a tape recorder from the small pocket. “Sasha, can I talk to you alone?”

“Why not?” Sasha said.

They crossed the hall together, shutting the door. Jack set his tea down carefully.Sasha sat on the visitor side of the desk. Jack settled in, and turned on the tape recorder. "Whenever you're ready," he said, waving his hand. 

_Statement from Sasha James regarding her office sweater._

_Statement Begins_

This is ridiculous. It’s not even my sweater. I’ve had it for ages, since before I officially became an archival assistant. I swiped it off Gertrude’s chair, around the time she disappeared since we’re still calling it that. All right, after she died. It was just her office sweater. She was old, she got cold sometimes. It was almost sweet.There was very little that was sweet about her.I liked that about her. It was nice to have one little thing. 

How are you doing this, how are you making me answer honestly? Why are your eyes green now? No matter, apparently it’s not my turn to ask questions. 

I never worked with her too much, bad things happened to her assistants and I have a little more self preservation than that. Still. The sweater is warm and it belongs in the Archives. Jon, original Jon, is cold and at first I didn’t think that he belonged. In a real way, he doesn’t. Gertrude never would have chosen him. Elias would. Neither were going by the printed job description. So, here we are.

You stole the job that Gertrude wanted me to have. You stole the damned sweater I have to remember her and her efficient ways by.She kept this place in an absolute panic. We’ve barely begun to set it to rights.It’s beautiful. It's impressive that we've made any kind of headway. 

We’ve established where we are, where we would be, where we should be. That much doesn’t matter. You didn’t go back far enough to change it, and honestly? I would rather die than be in your position. It sounds like I did. It sounds like you did. 

Keep the sweater. Let your younger self keep this job. You’ve more than earned it. 

_Statement Ends_

"That was...strange," Sasha said as she came back to herself.The spell was broken and her words were her own again.

"Awful?"

"Just strange. Why... why was I honest with you?" Sasha said.

"You can't not be."

"Is that what it's like for everyone?" Sasha said.

"Not... I don't think so.Not yet.Jon's not even taken a real statement yet, has he?"

"I mean, he's..." Sasha trailed off.Jon was doing his job, such as it was.As much as he knew how to do it.

"A real one," Jack said.He sighed. "A proper spooky one."

Sasha laughed, brief and genuine. "No, I don't think he has." Sasha said.

"Then there's no way of knowing."

"I won't let him practice on me," Sasha said.

"That's smart," Jack said. 

“Are we done?” Sasha said.

“Sure. ...thank you,” Jack said.

“Don’t mention it. Ever,” she said.She exhaled deeply. “It does look a little adorable on you.”

“Something’s gone wrong in this dimension, you’re all much more shallow than I remember.”

“Probably just more scared.” Sasha slapped her knees.

"Alright, let's get back to saving the world or ourselves or however this is going to play out."

"By all means," Jack said. He stayed behind the desk as Sasha walked out, leaving the door slightly open.

"You alright?" Martin asked as soon as she sat down, because he would.

She just nodded.

"Not taking the sweater back by force?" Jon asked. "I'm sure you could overpower him."

"Don't send me to certain death," Sasha said. "It's as much bias as anyone's." She sipped her tea. "Martin, this is lovely."

Martin's smile lit up the room.Jon's responding scowl cast a cloud over Martin's face. "I just thought we could use something nice as we, you know."

"Identify nightmare forces that have been behind the scenes of every bad thing that's ever happened in our entire lives?" Tim supplied. Sasha and Martin glanced at one another, both starting to talk with reasons to take Tim out of the office. He held up a hand. "Enough, both of you. I'm fine.We can schedule our time travel horror freakouts. We'll set up a rota.Sasha, you get to go first."

"Thank you." Sasha said.

"Because of your sweater," Tim said, a hint of nastiness creeping into his usual niceness.

"Drop it." Jon said.

"Sorry, boss," Tim said.He smiled at Sasha. "Maybe a break from all this?"

"It's not even nine thirty," Jon said.

"Jon," Sasha said warningly.

"Shall we go ask Jack since he's our new boss?" Tim said, smirking at Jon.

"He absolutely is not. He may have put in more time than me, and have seniority, but this is my time not his. I've been working for hours on this," Jon said."It's all very important and down to us, apparently."

"Always worried you'd work yourself into an early grave, boss," Tim said. "Didn't think you'd go back in time to talk yourself into it."

"Are they fighting or flirting?" Martin asked Sasha in what was probably supposed to be a whisper.

She just shrugged.

"Sasha, didn't you want to go check the archives for literally anything that'll get us out of the room?" Martin said I'm a normal tone of voice. 

"Yes, I did," Sasha said brightly."We'll show our findings to whoever's left alive."

Martin made it into real research, filling his notepad with notes of what had been recently reported to the Institute. "So, I had a couple of ideas of how we could approach it.We could go by geographical area, by power, by timeframe of the event or the statement itself..."

Sasha looked at him.

"What?"

"Did you sleep?" Sasha asked.

"Eventually," Martin said. "And I woke up early."

"Tell me you didn't come here, work, leave to get tea, and come back."

Martin recoiled, shaking his head. Sasha laughed. "No, I've just been thinking."

"There's a lot we could do with this information. That we will do," she corrected herself. 

"Become horribly overwhelmed by our own past traumas?" Martin asked. 

"Us or Jon and Tim?"

"Obviously them too, but..."

"Yeah, we should check in on them," Sasha said. "Before we go... Martin, what's wrong?"

"One day, we'll all be gone, and Jon will be on his own. Have you seen how Jack is looking at us?"

"I've seen how he looks at you," Sasha said. "Hot and cold."

Martin shook his head. "He's remembering us, every time.Marking the lines in our faces, the ones that are missing, the reverse of what we're doing to him. And I honestly and truly do not care that much for Jon, and I know he cares even less for me.What kind of horrors did we all go through together that he'd miss us that much..."

"Martin..."

"How am I going to die?" Martin said, his voice on the verge of breaking. "Which one of these is going to take me down? Which one of these killed Jon, even if it didn't stick?"

Sasha laid her hands on Martin's shoulders, reaching up to do so."Breathe," Sasha said.

"He wouldn't tell me if I asked."

"Flirt a little, he might," Sasha said, trying to snap Martin back to his warm, kind self. 

Martin started to laugh hysterically."Yeah, that'll work.I'm definitely his type in the future. His future."

"I thought that was last night's theory."

"Jon... seemed less than receptive to the idea," Martin said.

Sasha let go of his shoulders. "Then just focus on this horribleness."

"That's what I'm trying to do."

"Alright, just focus on breathing," Sasha said. She straightened up what they'd touched. "Let's go make sure the three of them haven't descended fully into chaos."


	5. no one knows what it's like behind blue eyes

Jack and Jon worked on the red string setup.Jack placed sticky notes, identifying who should and should not be allowed to investigate specific cases, who on the team would have particular insight and who might have special weaknesses.The overlap between the categories was carelessly defined even as his words were carefully chosen.

Jon was leaning against his desk, arms crossed, head tilted, features contorted into a scowl. He watched and waited for a chance to criticize.

Tim supervised them, ready to break up any physical fights.He felt they both needed to work their self sabotage out in their own ways. 

Jack went to smoke a cigarette, apparently relishing the simple opportunities. Jon fiddled with everything that Jack had arranged. 

Tim checked the door to see if Martin and Sasha were back from the Archives proper yet.When the second door opened next to it, he saw it immediately. 

"Knock, knock!" the being behind the door called.The voice sounded like two distinct voices, one presumably male and one potentially female, distorted before being overlaid on top of one another. A smile was flashed at Tim from an uncertain smile.The being held the doorway partially open with impossibly long fingers."Have you seen a rakish-looking man?" The long fingers pointed towards Jon. "Like that, but broken in?

"Jonathan Sims?" Tim asked, more than a little disbelieving.

"That's the one.I've got someone I just know he's been dying to see."The being moved aside and a tall man bumbled his way past them. "Here we are.Home sweet home."

The man, tall with sandy hair, vaguely grubby, stood in his T-shirt and ragged jeans.He looked around the room, hesitantly.

"Jesus!" Jon grumbled, eyes narrowing. He was focused on the man, not the being.His reaction seemed disproportionate unless one filtered this new man's presence through a particular lens. If he had come after Jack, then he was clearly important to him. 

"Just Helen will do," the being said from the still existent and misplaced doorframe. "So glad to have found you, my boy."

"It's the wrong Jon," the tall man said, his eyes tearing up. He gave a little shake of his head. "I'll find him, it's fine."

"He's outside smoking," Tim said.

The being that had resolved into someone called Helen was still talking to the man who'd come through her door: "I'll give you two another day or so to wrap up whatever schemes you have here, and back we go."

"How do I know you'll be back?" the new man asked, looking back at her over his shoulder.

"How do I know that you'll want to be back?"

"We will," the new man said. "I just need to find him first."

"You can speak for him."

"Helen, please," he said, dismissive but pleading."I just need to talk to him." He looked around at the two around him. "Tim, you said he was smoking... I don't know if it's the right Jon. Long salt and pepper hair, clothes too big for him, somehow always surrounded by tape recorders, too many scars, green eyes?"

"How many of these eyes?" Tim said.

it was more than enough of an answer. "That's my Jon," the man said. "...so, hello. I'm Martin Blackwood, but I think you know that already..."

"I have several dozen questions," Tim said."New Martin. Listen, he's Jack so, we can just call you Mark? You look like a Mark."

The man now christened Mark stared at Tim.Tears started to well up. "Whatever you like."

"How are you?" Tim said. "If you come from the same timeline as Jack, you look good.I mean, you look good regardless." He flashed a wide and winning smile. 

Mark wrapped Tim in a bear hug, moving quicker than should have been possible for his size.He was bigger than Martin, clearly no taller.It was mostly muscle, apparently naturally gained and easily kept."I'm so glad to see you." He released Tim. "This shirt doesn't seem like you."

"Thought I'd be a little lower key in honor of our time traveler."

Mark nodded, like that made sense to him.

Jon didn't approach, didn't retreat.Mark just smiled at him.A subdued greeting would seem to indicate that Mark hadn't missed Jon. Either they hadn't warmed to one another or Mark had seen Jon recently enough that he wouldn't be too sentimental. 

"Are you and Jon... alright?"

Mark nodded. "Far as I know."Mark stood, lips pressed together.

"No interpersonal conflicts," Jon said.

Mark started at him like he'd grown a second head. "No, we're fine.We're basically the only ones who are."

"So, how far from the future are you two from?" Tim asked. "Assuming you go together.Jack looks like Jon's uncle but you're just... Martin's older brother."

"Hot older brother?" Mark asked. Tim smiled. "I mean, I think I'd qualify..."

"We're not starting this again," Jon said.

"A few years in the future," Mark said."Hard to say, what with... well, everything.Less than five."

"What happens to us?" Jon said.There was a hint of static behind his voice, a trick he'd already picked up from Jack. 

Martin's face fell in stages. The room grew colder as it did. "Everyone died but me. I couldn't stop it, any of it, could only make it a little less painful. I'm the sole survivor. And I'm mortal too, I can't hold out forever. And while I was in the corridors, I was alone again."

Tim took his hand. "Jack's here.Jon.Your Jon." He didn't look at Jon as he spoke. "You won't be alone."

“Oh my god, Martin,” Jack said, a flurry of motion rushing in. Tim was immediately proven right. There was a vague impression of extra eyes being around Jack, all of them focused on Mark. He wrapped his arms around Mark's neck to get to a reasonable angle to kiss him. The kiss didn't last long, he seemed immediately embarrassed by his action. Tim coughed. Jon started to say something. The world realigned. 

Mark gently took Jack's hand and didn't let go. "I was right behind you.The door slammed shut, but I got it open again." He waved with his free hand to where it had been."That door better come back or I will have very strong words with the Distortion."

"Was it Michael or Helen?"

"Both, I think? Or neither.Or... god, I hope it's Helen. She likes you at least."

Jack sighed. A tape recorder clicked on. "It's been nearly two days."

"A day," Jon corrected him. He was duly ignored. "Not even a full day."

"Excuse me, would you mind terribly if we had the room alone for moment?" Mark said, still squeezing Jack's hand. "Time travelers needing to establish where we're at on the timeline."

"It's my office!" Jon shouted.

"It won't be a moment, Mr Sims."

"Fine, fine, I guess you'd let us know if the world won't end if we do absolutely no more work today."

"Thank you," Mark said sunnily, completely ignoring Jon's tone.

Tim and Jon stepped out.Tim nearly knocked over Martin, who was standing by the hinges to the door. 

"Are you eavesdropping?" Jon said, too loudly.

"Yes," Martin mouthed.

Tim walked off to help Sasha. Jon stayed with Martin, judging as he listened himself. There was the sound of fabric rustling, little else.Nothing untoward, just two people separated and rejoined. 

"Is this your work?" Mark said.

"They have to start somewhere," Jack said, manically excited. "It's practically the beginning.We can start over.Things can be so much better.I've focused on Prentiss. All these scars. I can save myself some pain, save you, save Sasha... save everyone."

"How noble of you. So selfless to come out the hero this time."

"I still have the scars," Jack said even louder."This isn't our time."

"Or it is, but you haven't changed it enough yet.Or it isn't and we need to get back to our path." There was a silence. "Have you eaten?"

"I talked with the team." Jack said.

"With young Martin?" Mark said, a note of something bitter in his voice. 

"I couldn't," Jack said. "I... I didn't know what to ask.I don't want to change him, just everything around him."

Mark laughed. "You wouldn't compel him to give up some mundane secret."

"You know me better than that."

"Of course."

"Elias is here," Jack said. "Watching. I couldn't tell them anything real.Not even about you. I said my partner and I were separated as we travelled. I was just trying to protect them from the Institute.It can't read me. At least, it hasn't interfered yet."

"Separated," Mark said, his voice raised in disbelief. "You're such an awful liar."

More fabric rustling.Jon glanced towards Martin, who was already looking his way and indecently blushing. 

"It's so early here," Jack said, his voice low and hopeful. "No Prentiss yet. No Naomi Herne yet, so no Lukas. No awful table, so Sasha's fine, everyone's fine."

"You're erasing our lives.My life," Martin said."Not particularly good parts of it, but those definitely shaped who I am to say, even if today is... yesterday."

"It's for the greater good."

"I don't want to lose you for the greater good," Mark said.

"I love you," Jack said.

Jon and Martin worked to not audibly gasp on the other side of the door.Jack continued to talk, to make promises that nothing would change about how he felt about Mark even if their experiences changed. It was impossible on multiple levels of meaning, the first of which being that the gulf between Jon and Martin would seem to be insurmountable. 

Martin had only the smallest beginning of a crush on his boss, which he'd thought he'd be able to smash down.Jon had little more than a vague aesthetic appreciation for the one assistant he hadn't wanted to employ. To hear their own voices, however worn they were, express such oblique adoration and devotion, was more confusing than they could bear. They'd heard too much. 

Jon and Martin stepped back from the door in unison. They both quickly tried to find something casual to be doing to cover for their voyeurism. They defaulted into Jon chewing Martin out for not being diligent enough, the language just coded enough to cover for the fact that Jon was really berating Martin for what they'd just heard and the fact that he'd instigated hearing it,

The tape recorder clicked off.

"Mr Sims, thank you for letting us use your office," Mark said when there was a lull. He was icier than seemed necessary. His clothing didn't reflect any of the rustling sounds that they had heard.Meanwhile, Jack seemed more put together than when they'd shut the door, his clothes smoothed and hanging off him properly, his hair less unruly. 

Jon nodded and stalked past him. He got to take up his own desk again while Jack was still distracted. Jack tried to follow him in, and when blocked tried to find a way to get in that wouldn't involve just knocking. He settled on just flinging the door open unannounced.

Mark smiled at Martin. "Hello."

Martin nodded. "I washed your shirt."

"My... oh, thank you," Mark said. "He's claimed it so thoroughly, I forgot it was mine to begin with."

"Tea?" Martin suggested, because he didn't know what else to say.

Mark trailed behind him to the break room.They were alone. Martin brewed the tea. "Can I ask--" Martin started.

"Anything you ask me will end in tears," Mark said matter of factly.

"I'm not afraid of that," Martin said. He took a deep breath. "Mum?"

"Gone," Mark said.It got colder around them.

"Painful?" Martin said, the one word layered with meaning. Did it hurt her? Did it still hurt him?

Mark shook his head. "No more than anything else." He closed his eyes. "I hope Jon's right."

"Speaking of..."

Mark smiled sadly. "This is what I'm worried about.The last few years have been hell and I just don't know if that's what's brought us together and I don't want to let him go."

Martin poured them both a mug of tea. "I was about to ask how you take yours," he said with a little laugh."I should know your preferences, shouldn't I?"

"You do," Mark reassured him.

"Why would he ever want me?"

"You'd have to ask him. I can only answer why you'd want him.He dropped the skeptical routine and ran headlong into all of this."

"And he's hot."

"You should know yourself better than that," Mark said.


	6. don't it make my brown eyes blue

Everyone settled down into what was passing for their work. Enthusiasm waned as the seeming impossibility loomed. Mark had been talking to Martin. Having just experienced the strangeness himself, Jon thought it would be helpful to check in with Martin. 

Martin let loose a torrent of words that Jon didn't know what to do with. "People change! They grow or shrink or have new eye colors. It's fine! It doesn't change what I'm doing here and now. I'm just doing my job which apparently now includes working to save the world from nightmares. Honestly, not that far off from what I first expected from the Institute."

"Sorry," Jon said. 

"No, I'm sorry," Martin said, because it was his nature to be the one to apologize. "I was starting to come to terms with my own future death and instead I drop out a door, looking a little tired."

"You're looking a little tired already," Jon said, hypocritically. 

Mark and Jack (Martin and Jon, just a handful of years, a few dozen months ahead) argued in hushed tones and understanding whispers and significant looks. The futility of the task was growing. Mark's presence was grounding Jack in whatever passed for their shared reality. His apparent humanity with minimal scarring showed how little calendar time had passed. Jon had been, was going to be, all but destroyed.Mark seemed a little more on edge, a little louder at the wrong moments and softer in unexpected ones.

"We need to act," Mark said.

"We are acting.We don't need to stay just here, in this office, until we keel over from dual heart attacks.We need to move quickly. Do something real."

"This is real," Jack said softly.

"Research isn't real," Mark said.

Jack squeezed his hand quickly, an overt action of affection in front of the rest. "For the sake of my own sanity, I'm going to pretend you didn't say that."

"We need to apply our knowledge," Mark said in a normal tone of voice. "We both know more than enough. We need to take action."

"With fire?" Jack said, crossing his arms.

"Well, if you think that'd be best.I was brainstorming some different ideas on my way here, while I was delayed." Mark smiled, and raised his voice. "Or, these nice archival assistants can go follow up on this stack of statements that I've helpfully identified along with specific questions to ask." He turned to the others who were carefully not listening to him. They dutifully approached at his nod. He handed out file folders to each. "Go, investigate. These should all be in approximately the same area, so you won't have to travel too far. I highlighted the phone numbers and addresses. I put little tales of which ones you might need backup for. Obviously not all for today. I don't even know what time it is..."

"Thank you, Martin," Sasha and Tim said in chorus. Martin took a folder of his own.The three of them checked in and out with Jon as they went out the door.

Jon tried to find somewhere to be away from Jack and Mark.The two of them remained completely professional and focused. Mark was distracting him. Mark was unhappy with his plan for Sasha and Tim to be out of the office. He wove a continual commentary about his concern for them with his general happiness that they were currently alright. He was talking to Jack, not Jon, but Jon absorbed it by proximity.

"Are you two going to do any fieldwork?" Jon suggested.

"We can't leave, in case Helen or Michael or whatever comes back."

"Helen will find us.That's the entire point of the doors! They can show up anywhere."

"Michael wouldn't even give us another thought."

"We're either too disruptive or fitting in too well." Mark smiled at Jon. "I look too much like Martin."

"You're not a reanimated corpse," Jack said.

"Don't say it like that, Jon won't know that you're joking. He jokes now," Mark said, directly addressing the originals.

"I joked then, too, you just never listened to me."

Their slight disagreements were growing. Jon felt more and more off balance just being in the same room with them. He found himself agreeing with the man claiming to be his future self.

Jack smoked too much, running through the pack that Jon liked to claim that he didn't even own. Mark made a point of talking to Jon then.

"You seem like... well, if we're in our past, I'm not going to say you're nice because lying isn't something I like to do. I think this is an alternate timeline, not our own past. I want to help you, I do. It's just I don't know how much good we can actually do if we're not part of this,"

"You're not Martin Blackwood," Jon said, leaving it to the stranger's interpretation.

"I'm not the man you've known for such a short time and completely despise," Mark agreed. "He isn't either. Taking it out on him will hurt you eventually."

"I don't--" Jon started.

Mark's laugh cut him off. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just... I can't be the one to talk to you about this. I'm sorry if you're unhappy or scared or whatever this is, but I am exactly the wrong person to have a heart-to-heart with you.I want out of this entire world.It wouldn't do you any good."

"You don't...care. Why would you care? I mean, even if we are your past."

"Despite what it might seem like, I'm actually happy with Jon. It's everything around us that seems terrible. He sees me, and he loves me. I... was going to ask if you know what that feels like, but that would just be cruel and I've never been a cruel man before."

Mark maintained eye contact with Jon then. Martin had hazel eyes, apparently. He usually avoided direct eye contact with Jon. Mark didn't seem happy about it himself and broke first.

Sasha, Tim, and Martin returned to drop off their notes from their field research.Martin pulled Mark aside for a private conversation. Jon lingered, as ever. 

"We're going to get a large quantity of drinks," Sasha said. "Would you like to come, Jon?"

Mark and Martin rejoined the general group. "Martin's going to let us take over his flat," Mark said. "Something about a horrible smell.And I own a real bed, here and now."

"You can go, then, I'll just--"

Mark crossed his arms over his chest.

"--I'll just go with you," Jack finished. "And trust that you're right."

"It's known to happen," Mark said.

Martin nodded, not looking directly at either of them. "Here, just…. Here's my flat key, here's my Oyster card, I… you don't need money or anything, do you?"

"Do you have food in your flat?" Jack said.

Mark smirked at him. "Pre-Prentiss," he said. "He's stocked, ready for anything. Thank you, Martin, this will be fine. I just want to sleep on a real bed for a night. 

Martin chuckled. "The alarm clock's already set and all, so you can get in during our work hour sim case that's when your...friend? ...will be back. Take whatever you need, just... don't take it all, you know?"

Mark nodded. "Shower, sleep, maybe a new shirt. That's plenty."

Jack smiled at Martin but didn't say anything. The two made a series of unnecessary farewells and a dignified exit to invade Martin's life. 

"Really, mate?" Tim said.

"I can definitely say that he'd do the same for me. Can hardly ask the two of them to share one little cot."

"Can barely ask you to," Jon said. He regretted ever setting it up.

"I offered. They need their space."

"Your basic needs are as important as theirs," Jon said. Tim just waved his hands at Jon in agreement.

"You don't know who they are," Sasha said.

"I thought we'd all decided to believe them," Martin said, looking around.

"We had, but now…" Tim said, sighing. "Are we not going to talk about this at all?"

"Drinks first," Sasha said."Jon, are you in?"

"Sorry?" he said, distracted.

"Drinks?" Sasha suggested again.

"Please," Jon said.

The four of them, the non-time-travelers, fell into a booth at the nearest pub.Tim ensured drinks would keep coming. Jon and Sasha sat on one side, Tim and Martin on another.

Tim cleared his throat to prepare for a swear: "Alright, the Archives has new people, so let's do this.Fuck, marry, kill."

"Bloody hell," Jon said.

Tim kissed Martin's cheek. "First prize. Well, tie between you and Sasha."

"Liar," Martin said. "Second place for me as always. I'd like a small wedding."

"Jack for first, then?" Sasha said. 

"Yes, please," Tim said. "Sorry, boss."

"Doesn't involve me," Jon said. 

"Who's left to kill?" Sasha asked. "Jon or badass future Martin?"

"Buff Martin could take you down," Martin said, leaning into Tim.

"My choice is clear. Sorry, boss."

"And to think how different your priorities were just a day ago," Jon said.

"And yours," Tim said. He pulled Martin towards him in a sudden side hug. "Not that the two of you won't make an adorable couple once Jon becomes a sexy pirate."

Martin playfully shoved Tim away, the gesture clearly calculated so as not to hurt Tim at all. 

Another round of drinks, and Jon learned that Sasha and Martin would both marry him.He declined both in case a proposal was coming next.Martin blushed both times.Jon declined to play, for a variety of reasons, and no one pushed. 

They hit the drinks limit soon enough.They needed to work the next morning.Jon was startled by how quickly the time ran out. 

They said their goodbyes out on the pavement. "You sure you don't want to come back to mine?" Tim asked Martin with his usual grin.

Martin started, blinked, and smiled. "Oh, right.I'm staying on the cot."

"You thought..." Tim said, chuckling to himself.He looked to Jon for a moment.

"I'm going to go back to the institute. Thanks, Tim."

Martin started to walk back the way they'd come.Jon trailed along with him. "Long day. Still, two of us are guaranteed to get through whatever's to come."

"They're not us," Martin said.

"They're not...like us, don't you think? Personalities don't seem quite to match up."

"I get it, you wouldn't be romantically interested in me if I was the last man on earth," Martin said flatly."The two of them, they're not us, not any more. It makes sense. Sort of."

Jon wavered. "Martin. My couch is more comfortable than the cot."

"You'd be the expert there," Martin said politely.

"I mean it," Jon said, physically unable to get the actual invitation out into words. 

"You don't have to prove anything. And I've not asked you, not asked you for anything. I don't... I don't want. Anything. Not from you."

"I'm just offering.... not to share my bed, just..." Jon couldn't put it together to say out loud.

"Just a feeling of guilt because I'm hosting my future self and you wouldn't?"

"That's not what I meant," Jon said.

Martin stopped walking."They can form romantic attachments. That doesn't mean it has to be us. I'm not asking you out or writing your name in my notebook or anything. You're my boss. So I don't need to stay on your couch."

"You're too tall for the cot," Jon said.He didn't know what else to say.

"How long is your couch?" Martin said.

"Just about your height."

"You've measured both?" Martin said.

"I can estimate."

"And you're not... this is okay?" Martin said.

"I wouldn't have offered if it wasn't," Jon said. Martin knew him well enough to know that was a lie. "You gave away your bed, possibly your life, to time travelers with our faces. At least I can do this much."

"Fine," Martin said. He giggled. "You've worn me down, Jon. Take me home."


	7. eyes of the bluest skies

Martin humbly followed Jon home.He stood in Jon's living room while Jon tried to explain how he didn't have any clothes remotely close to Martin's size and how this was all Martin's fault for giving his flat away to two time travelers. It was either conciliatory or an accusation. Martin's very presence was an unwelcome intrusion.He just wanted to apologize to Jon.

Instead, he sat on the couch.Jon was still standing, still talking.It wasn't quite babbling, the kind of ongoing talk that Jon did was more stammering than talking.Martin wiggled a little. "This is nice," he said. 

Jon's words slowed, came to a stop. "You'll be comfortable there." It was a command not a question. Martin nodded to acknowledge that he'd heard. Jon resumed his explanation that he didn't have any other clothes for Martin to change into.Martin nodded again, untying his shoes.

When Martin looked up, there was a tape recorder was on the coffee table. It wasn't on, not yet.It seemed expectant.It seemed like a large spider, some kind of furry thing waiting to be cooed at and petted.He tapped on it."Are you collecting these?"

"That wasn't there before," Jon said.

Martin nodded.He didn't want to meet Jon's eyes, for all of the normal reasons, but also because he didn't want to see if they were brown or green."Right." He tapped it again, nowhere near the buttons.

It clicked on.

Martin turned it back off, felt it almost struggle under his hand. "I'm tired," he said. "Drunk," he added.Both were inaccurate. He'd matched his peers drink for drink, which (due to his increased size over someone like Sasha or Jon) meant he was all but sober.

Martin pulled his hand back from the recorder. Jon was still standing over him, looming. It was a neat trick, considering their respective sizes, one that drew its power from their personalities and states of mind.

"Mind if I sit down?" Jon said. He was trying to equalize their situation, to literally come down to Martin's level.The alcohol that was still sloshing around Martin's brain thought it was was sweet.Thanks to the confusion that was time travel, Martin was more than willing to classify anything Jon did as sweet.

"Your couch, your flat," Martin said. He didn't say "your assistant" because it seemed irrelevant.It didn't seem accurate; his thoughts kept drifting away from Jon's flat to his own.

The recorder clicked itself on, again, as Jon sat down next to Martin. Martin focused on the recorder.

"Are you feeling alright, Martin?" Jon asked, static edging into his voice. He didn't sound quite like himself.He sounded like Jack. 

Martin's attention snapped to Jon. He stared at Jon as he tried to process the question and its answer.It was still Jon, not Jack; he had the normal amount of eyes and the usual lack of scars. "Are... do you want my statement?" Martin said, voice

The static seemed to be getting louder, sitting somewhere in the air between them. 

Jon was fighting it more than Martin was.Martin wasn't fighting, he just didn't know how to answer the question. "Forget it," Jon said.The recorder shut off. The foggy sense, the thrum just behind the ears, it was gone.Martin felt dizzy in its absence.

"I didn't say I wouldn't give a statement," Martin protested."You just didn't give me a chance."

"What," Jon said flatly. Click went the tape recorder. "Fine, have it your way. Statement of Martin Blackwood on being alright.Statement taken directly from subject. Statement begins."

Jon smirked at Martin like this hadn't been Jon's idea.The tape recorder hadn't t been there, maybe Jon was being compelled somehow to do this. Martin thought of how trapped Jon was, how caught up he was in whatever Jack had been trying to make them understand. Martin didn't pity Jon, not exactly, but he felt for him.Martin just wanted to ask Jon how he was coping.

The static was back, seeping into his head. "I feel fine," he said, and it started to push from behind his eyes. "I don't know what you want from me," Martin said, addressing the tape recorder directly."Do you mean am I alright here on the couch for the night? Because of course I am, it's fine.The cot would have been fine. Anything is fine. I'm just...well, I'm not tired yet, but eventually it will hit or fall away and then I'll be exhausted."

Jon didn't answer. Martin looked at him, full in the face, but Jon wouldn't look at him so he couldn't gauge the color of his eyes. It was just an innocent question, Martin was the one making it weird.

"This hurts," he said.Jon made a shocked sound and Martin nearly rolled his eyes."Guess I'm not going deep enough? I don't know how I feel about things, sometimes. It's doesn't matter.Don't want to say anything unpleasant, make anyone else feel bad.You do that long enough and how can you know how you feel, underneath it all?"

Jon laid a hand on Martin's arm.Martin focused on the hand, not wanting to look at the undoubtedly green eyes. "If Jack and Mark are right, we're in for a lot to come," Martin said.The pain increased, he wasn't being honest. "Jon and Martin," he corrected himself.The pressure let up. The static wanted him to tell the truth. "We gave them random names to make it easier for us. Little code names to separate us. That helped when it was just this different Jon, but seeing my future self made it different.They're real people, who have been hurt over and over." Martin laughed. "And I'm so glad that I can help them. Aren't you? They've clearly been through so much."

Jon moved his hand off Martin's arm. Jon pursed his lips."The scars again?" He meant the fears, the entities, the dreadful powers that were manipulating them. 

"No.The people. They're both orphans, right?"

He thought he knew that about Jon, couldn't remember if he'd come by this knowledge through official channels or office gossip or his own secretive research into his boss.Jon nodded, attempting to speak. Martin was worried that he was getting the nerve and words to ask about Martin's mother. That wouldn't be anything but a painful distraction. 

"They're both alone. From what they've said, everyone else they've cared about it gone. They have each other, and it's enough for them even though it's all they have. They're just this bubble of love floating through in time.It's literally the most romantic that I could ever imagine happening to me, and this future version of me has itSo, what can I do? Here and now, what can I offer them? A bed.A real bed to sleep in, to share if they want.I'd want that, so the better Martin must too."

He wasn't crying, but that was because the static wouldn't let him.  He wasn't useful to it if he couldn't speak.

"He's not the better Martin," Jon said.

"He really is.He's alive and relatively unscathed and has a hot boyfriend that apparently all of your assistants would kill to have. He's better than me! He's finally lost everything and built it back up.Meanwhile, I'm having a breakdown on my boss's couch."

"This hardly qualifies as a breakdown."

"I'll try harder," Martin said. "I'm jealous of this man who's suffered so much. He has nothing but... one thing that I might want. He has someone who cares about him, who cares..."

Jon waited.

"If he's alright."

"I did ask," Jon said, just a touch sulkily.Martin laughed. "Everyone's asked, haven't they?" 

Martin just shook his head. "Asking doesn't mean caring." He didn't like being honest if it mean hurting someone else's feelings. The static didn't seem to care what he liked. "I just want... I want what they have and as far as I can tell, I won't.Which is fine.It has to be fine." The static screamed. "It will be fine," Martin said softly."Just not tonight."

The static calmed down, backed off and quieted.

"We serve the Beholding, right? It watches and listens and literally records. I think I can keep my secrets somehow.I have so little, and no one cares, but I'd rather have that fear of being caught out than the Lonely.I don't want to be seen, and I don't want to be alone. I think that some of this is bleeding over from my future self."He looked at Jon's eyes. "Your eyes are green. You're getting that same blur."

"No memories," Jon said. "Just nostalgia."

"Missing things that haven't happened yet?"

"Everyone was gone but me," Jon said, despite it not being his statement. "I felt the loss of you like it had been your death, not just a day's separation."

"Can you hear the static?" Martin asked. He tried to think out of it. "Statement Ends." The static dissipated so quickly Martin felt like he was going to fall over.

Jon hit stop on the recorder. "Jesus, I'm sorry," Jon said.

"Sorry," Martin said back, not entirely sure what Jon was apologizing for but knowing it was the right thing to say.The tears weren't being held back by the static any more.

"I didn't..." Jon said.He trailed off, leaving that as its own complete thought.

Martin leaned back against the couch, stretching his arms across the back of it. He was careful not to touch Jon. "He's nice... he deserves something nice."

"Your future self," Jon said.

Martin nodded. "Him too. It's an easy gesture. You don't have to take me in, I can go back to the Institute. The cot will be fine."

"Like you said, it's an easy gesture," Jon said.He let his fingers briefly graze Martin's arm. "Here, let me turn this into a proper bed."

He waved for Martin to get up, got sheets to put in the sofa.Martin just stood and tried to recall everything he'd just said and thought.

"Get some sleep."

"You too," Martin said.

Jon went off to his bedroom.Martin sat on the couch, and tried not to think about anything.He didn't think about sleeping in his trousers or taking them off, about not having a toothbrush or if he should shower in the morning.He stripped off his trousers and wrapped himself in the fresh sheets.

Martin set an alarm on his cell phone, which he usually didn't bother to do. He always kept his phone by the bed, in case his mother... just in case.He didn't even have a charger to use, here in Jon's living room.

He thought about his analog alarm clock at home on the left side of the bed, its numbers clicking over in the morning. It was set for seven o'clock.He didn't know future Martin, Mark, would remember it or want to change it.He didn't know if they would be sharing the bed, he would sleep on that side.IfJon would be startled awake, lying there, and smile thinking of Martin's past self having such a idiosyncratic alarm. 

Martin wanted to be charming, even if it was just in the past tense.He didn't cry, didn't let himself feel anything.This wasn't the place or time. Eventually, his eyes closed and he fell asleep, wishing to be something he wasn't yet.

It didn't seem long enough before he woke up to the sounds of Jon moving around. He wasn't as disorientated as he had anticipated. He hadn't slept long enough or deeply enough to forget where he was.Martin was sprawled across the couch, one leg bent up and one stretching out over the end.Jon's approximate measurements had been wrong.

Jon showered and got dressed for work. Martin stood and stretched properly, briefly taking up all of the space in the room. He dressed in his same clothes, picked up from where they'd been dropped.

Jon was ostentatiously not in the same room as Martin. "You ready to go to work?" Martin called. "Shine a light into the darkness and all that?"

Jon entered the room, flushed and nodding. "It's not that I don't care," Jon said.

Martin sunnily dismissed him. "Clear light of day, it doesn't matter. There's real work to be done."

"This isn't...like you."

"You really don't know me all that well," Martin said softly."Let's get going.Early for me, practically late for you." He smiled. Jon smiled too. Jon then proceeded to ignore him during the entire commute, entrance into the Institute, and beginning of the workday.

Annoyingly, Martin looked pretty much the same as he normally did. He made tea earlier than usual, dropping it off at Jon's desk before anyone else even came in. 

Jack and Mark came in after Tim and Sasha. They each were wearing clean shirts of Martin's, which was fine on mark and absolutely adorable on Jack. They both had clearly showered. Jack's hair was pulled back in one loose braid. Martin wasn't staring, just noticing.

Jack handed over Martin's personal effects. "Thank for your hospitality. I changed the bed linens."

Martin realized he should have done that with Jon's couch."Oh, thanks."

The two normal eyes Jon possessed in their usual location widened. "We…. Don't. We didn't. I…"

Martin realized Jon was trying to explain that they'd only slept in his bed, not done anything more "Oh. I didn't think…" he started, trying to acknowledge something unspoken and presumptuous.

Jack cleared his throat. "How was the cot?"

"...fine," Martin said.Literally no one but Jon needed to know that he'd stayed on Jon's couch.It had been a fairly meaningless gesture, one too personally felt."I can sleep anywhere."

"I know," Jack smiled. 

"So, what's the plan?"

"We're leaving today. All of you will need to apply this knowledge.Just..take care of yourself, Martin.Please." Jack took his hand.The extra eyes were back.Martin just nodded.


	8. irises of every hue and color

Jon hadn't slept well.He dreamt he was Jack, half awake lying in Martin's bed and staring at a ridiculous alarm clock. A sleeping Martin at his side, with snoring echoed the snoring in Jon's own living room. Woven in and out of that was death and destruction, fear and hatred and fear.Peace was only available with eyes open, listening to Martin's snoring.

Jon had woken up early, even for him.He wanted to explain to Martin his own requirements for romantic relationships, the dissatisfaction that could come from any expectation of a sexual liaison. He wanted to agree with Martin that yes, Jon was his boss and even inviting Martin to stay this one night was too much of a boundary violation. He wanted to explain that someone would care, even if it wasn't necessarily Jon, in the way that Martin might want.

He ignored Martin instead. That presumably would get the point across that Jon was incredibly unqualified to offer anything to anyone. It had to be too early on their timeline for it to break Martin's heart.

Tim and Sasha came in next, their arrival suspiciously staggered. Jon added it to his mental column of things not to think about. 

Jack and Mark came in, which nearly escaped Jon's notice.They both were clean and bright-eyed. Mark was cheerfully chatting with Sasha, reviewing her notes and making recommendations for what she should do next.Jack was talkingwith Martin, Jon's own Martin. Jon wasn't paying any particular attention. He didn't notice Jack handing Martin a notebook, pushing it towards him with both hands. He knew that he didn't notice it because he made a point of telling himself not to mention it. 

Tim and Sasha went out to do fieldwork, exchanging affectionate farewells with Jack and Mark just in case the time travelers had left before the archival assistants returned.It was too crowded in the Archives with so many people present, worse now without them.It was just Jon and Martin, duplicated. It was difficult to ignore.

Jon had the feeling of being used as a magnifying glass for someone else.He had the sense that it was being squabbled over.He was just trying to read a simple statement, but someone else was metaphysically looking over his shoulder.

"Jon?" Martin said, just a little too concerned.Jon was sitting at his desk, eyes unfocused on the written statement before him. Martin was bringing him tea. And it was his Martin! The man who saw himself alone and hopeless -- or was Jon projecting there?

Jon gratefully took the offered tea. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

"How are they? Jack and Mark," he clarified.

"Getting ready to go. Arguing a bit. I mean, they're trying to hide it from the children, not make a fuss, but they're disagreeing on something," Martin said.

"The children?"

"Us. Jack pointed at me and said they should never squabble in front of the children." Martin blushed. "I'm guessing he knew I was eavesdropping already."

"Well, he knows you," Jon said. Jon remembered vaguely that Martin had a sick mother and absent father. He didn't know if he'd been told this outright, had put several facts together, or had somehow been given this information by Jack. "Things will be back to normal when they leave."

Martin just smiled and walked away.  Jon didn't call him back to ask about the notebook from Jack. He didn't care and it was none of his concern even if he did. 

Jon returned to his papers. After some unknown period of time, he looked up at the wall to release some strain from his eyes. There was an open door, cutting through the carefully strung together display, pulling it backwards. He screamed. Both Martins and Jack came running.

"Helen, just five minutes," Mark said, in the calm tone of a man asking his driver to idle the car a moment. 

"Oh, are you really going to do it?" A long, echoing laugh came out from behind long golden hair.

"Michael… this is what you wanted too, isn't it?" Mark asked.

The laugh trickled off. "I'll meet you there." The door slammed shut, everything back in its own place. 

"Aren't you leaving now?" Martin said, his voice breaking a little.Jon couldn't swear as to what was behind that emotion. 

"I've got a plan," Mark nodded. "One thing that I have to do, one thing that I said I'd do if I ever came back to the institute."

Jack shook his head. There were no extra eyes.He was trying not to see, Jon knew that. "This isn't the time, even if it is the place."

"Don't See…" Mark said, and with that any concern about arguing in front of the "children" was no longer a consideration. A tape recorder previously not on Jon's desk was on and running.Ethan turned it off and shook his finger at it.

"I'm not Knowing, I just… you've said…"

"I was talking with Helen, then with Michael, with whatever was with me before I rejoined you.It, she, they like my plan."

"That isn't a glowing endorsement," Jack said.Jon agreed with him, even though he desperately didn't want to know what they were talking about.

"I could hardly run it past you." Mark said.

"You can now," Jack said.

"Can, but won't." Mark said.

"What if he was right?" Jack said. "What if you're putting them all in danger?"

"Jon. I know what I'm doing. It won't come to that." He kissed Jack's forehead. He was getting more and more animated. 

Mark set off down the hall, his boyfriend and their doubles trailing behind him. He was walking faster than was naturally comfortable for Jon and Jack with their shorter legs.Martin just didn't seem to want to keep up, was staying in step with Jon.

"You shouldn't even be thinking this," Jack said."This wasn't my plan."

"I'm not going to actually kill him," Mark said, both unconvincingly and unnervingly. 

Jon and Martin drifted next to each other in the hallway. "We have to do something, have to stop him," Martin said. "You know where he's leading us."

"I'm trying not to know anything," Jon said.

"Burying your head in the sand is only going to work up to a certain point," Martin said peevishly.

Mark threw open the office door. "ELIAS!" he bellowed.He was standing up straight, a light in his eyes that seemed to illuminate his whole body. He took up more space than Martin ever had. 

"Yes?" Elias said, sitting behind his desk. "Martin?" Elias did a quick recount. "Two Martins?"

"And two Jons," Jack said. "Two Archivists."

"Yes." Elias stood and walked around his desk, smoothing the lines of his undoubtedly expensive suit jacket.Elias smiled at that, a predator sighting its prey."Oh, that is very useful. I don't think I realized how much so." 

"Been a bit distracted?" Mark said, feverishly bright still. He dropped the bag he carried off his shoulder.

"A bit--" Elias looked towards Jack."There have been many developments of late."

Mark took advantage of the momentary shock to swing his left fist into Elias's left eye and slam his right fist into his nose.Elias reeled back. 

"Who the hell are you?" he asked Mark, moving so his untouched eye was focused on him. Mark brought his left fist up into Elias's face again. It wasn't much of an answer. 

"Martin K Blackwood," Mark said with the same vicious smile.He was shaking both hands, twitching his fingers. "Can't you behold me? Can't you know exactly who I am? Or do you not have access yet to my eyes? I'm already employed here, or can you only see through my old self?"

"Holy shit," Martin said at the same time that Jon said "bloody hell." They looked at one another. Martin's face was all but drained of blood.Jon was worried that he might faint. He wouldn't be able to break Martin's fall. 

"No call for that kind of language, everyone," Elias said.Jon had all but forgotten him because he didn't want to. He took a handkerchief out of an inside pocket of his jacket, flourishing it before applying it to his nose.

"Elias, are you alright?"Martin asked. It was a foolish question from the wrong fool. Jon should have been the one asking. Jon should have been physically inserting himself between Martin and Elias. 

Elias ignored him, sparing a brief glance at Jon who couldn't help but wince at the sight of his superior's face. 

"How about it, Jonah?" Mark asked, trying to get his attention. "Do you have anything to say for yourself."

It was harder work than it should have been. Even after all that, Elias's eye seemed unable to focus on Mark or Jack. Elias smiled. "I didn't think this little time travel game was important, so I didn't see you. I can see you now, Martin Blackwood." The glare would have been more effective if his facial features were in their more usual configuration and color.

The door opened in the floor before Mark could decide to strike again. Jack grabbed Mark's wrist and pulled him down into the door. "Thank you!" Mark shouted.

The door in the carpet closed faded. Martin stared at Elias, offering advice and trying to tend to him without touching him. Jon stared at Martin, at the floor. The dizzying sense of being doubled was gone.His mind was trying to reconcile a second, shadowy set of recent memories.

Elias breathed heavily. "I'm alright. No loss of consciousness, no alteration to vision. That poor deluded shared hallucination.Back to work."

"Do you need anything?" Martin asked. "I can get you some ice."

Elias stared in Martin's general direction. "No charges will be pressed."

"Oh! I didn't...I wasn't the one…" Martin looked down at his own hands.

"Exactly. I forgive you in advance." Elias laughed.

"Thank...you?" Martin said."They weren't even time travelers, their past didn't match our present..."

"Go," Elias said. 

"Yes, sir. Sorry. I mean, generally sorry, not a personal admission of responsibility."

Jon took Martin's arm and made a show of dragging Martin out of the room. Fortunately, Martin seemed perfectly willing to follow directions.They walked back toward Jon's office.Jon managed to tap and gesture Martin into sitting in a chair. 

"Should we take down the string?" Martin asked Jon.

"Elias might prefer that, yes," Jon said."We still have notes to work from, if we want to work."

"I'm going to be fired," Martin said glumly. 

Jon patted Martin on the shoulder briefly, before backing off. "It wasn't you. That man was never you.Strangers, the stranger, someone who's stolen your face for their own reasons."

"So, we can't trust any of this, anything that Jack told us?" Martin said.

"I don't know," Jon said. "Elias said time travel isn't real."

"And Elias is your boss still," Martin said. Jon let him sit there in the chair, pulling himself together.Pulling himself together seemed to be a longer process than Jon had anticipated. Jon got to work disassembling everything that Jack had put up.He wanted to erase any sign that Jack or Mark had ever been there.

Tim came to check in with Jon while Martin was still sitting there.

"Mark and Jack left," Jon said. It wasn't a lie. It wasn't the whole truth, but it wasn't a lie.

"Right. What actually happened?" Tim asked.

Martin lifted his head enough to look at Tim."Mark attacked Elias on his way out the door." Martin demonstrated the hits from the chair he was collapsed in. "Jab, cross. Hook." He dropped his still clenched fists to his knees. "I'm so fired."

"Martin, have you ever been in a fight?" Jon asked. "Yet?" he added.

"I've never started one," Martin said miserably, still addressing his own legs.The phrasing seemed off, but Jon didn't know why."Not even as a kid." An unnecessary clarification if it was true. 

"Just finished a few?" Tim said.He'd connected the dots faster than Jon. Martin nodded without looking up. He didn't seem to like directly lying. Just by omission, or misleading. He took several deep breaths. 

"Martin and Elias will both pull through," Jon said. "I really think we should drop this while Elias is still feeling…magnanimous."

Martin clenched his hands and released them. "I can feel it in my hands. How his fists were clenched, how it physically felt when the blow struck and how he must have felt."

"He felt triumphant and defiant," Jon said. "Whoever that man was, and he was not you, he clearly had been considering that for a while."

"I could never!"

"Which is how we know he's not you."

"Martin," Tim said. It was apparently a whole thought on its own, and worked to get Martin's attention solely focused on Tim.

Jon stopped what he was doing. "Tim, can you please make sure he gets home safe?"

"Of course, boss," Tim said, not taking his eyes off Martin. 

Martin let the notebook behind. Jon convinced himself that he didn't know what it was, or that it had been from Jack, or if Martin had deliberately hiding it from him out of embarrassment. He flipped through, idly, just part of the process of picking it up. He didn't read anything until he saw a line literally addressed to him: Dear Jonathan Sims. 


	9. don't care if my eyes get sore

Martin was escorted to his own flat by a vaguely worried Tim, then shooed him away. He told Tim he wanted to be alone in advance of potentially being fired. Tim wasn't happy with it, but he was enough of a gentleman to respect Martin's desire to be left alone. 

He didn't want to think about the time travelers. Hot Jon was gone. He might develop over the years, be reshaped and marked into the dashing outlaw type. He hadn't worn any special cologne, there was no lingering scent where he had been.

He had slept in Martin's bed the night before. Presumably, he'd showered first and then went to bed. The linens had been changed again and the towels were hung to dry. There were signs of life, of a tidy presence having been through there. 

Martin didn't sniff the discarded, unsoiled sheets. They were the ones that he'd left on the bed. If they smelled of anyone, it would just be himself. He showered first, washing off the terror he'd felt from work. Then he took to his bed, trying to convince himself that he wasn't sniffing for a sign of the Jon from the future. The stranger who wore Jon's face, reshaped by pain. That man was gone, through a door in the floor of Elias's office. 

That man's partner, his boyfriend, his companion was the other Martin. Another strange man with a familiar face. That reckless man who was just a touch less fat and just a touch more muscular than Martin was. That man had punched Elias Bouchard in the face. Repeatedly. 

Martin couldn't afford to lose his job. He wasn't qualified to get another job. It wasn't like he was going to be getting references from the Institute now. He wanted to use his job to try to make the world a better place, since that was apparently a viable option. He didn't want to try and fail at knocking out his boss's boss.

He fell into his bed and stared at his alarm clock, debating on keeping it set for the next morning. The time travelers had kept it set. They'd moved it slightly. They'd made space for themselves in his home. It was fair enough.

He moved the clock back, so he could put his phone on the bedside table next to it. His phone rang an hour or two after he set it down. Caller ID showed it was exactly the person that he didn't want to hear from yet.

"Martin," Jon said, sounding disturbingly relieved. 

"Yes, Jon. You called me so I answered." Martin laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. "Am I fired?"

"No," Jon said, promising something he couldn't guarantee. "I mean, I haven't asked Elias again. Trying to give him a wide berth. Probably not bother him again for a while."

"Why are you calling?" Martin asked. He didn't like his own tone of voice. There was a lingering sense of the ghost of the man who might never exist, thin with a long braid, heavily scarred with all the times he'd been attacked. He wanted that man to be calling him, or for the man on the phone to be that man. 

"You left the notebook that the other Martin... that Mark had brought you," Jon said. He was embarrassed about the circumstances under which Martin had left work early. 

"And you read it?" Martin said, voice squeaking and breaking. It was worse than Jon reading his diary. He was eavesdropping on a private conversation. 

"I did," Jon said, having the decency to sound a little ashamed. "Most of it, anyways."

Martin pushed himself up in bed. “What?”

"They expected me to," Jon said, desperately. Martin's words had caused some kind of desperation in him. "It was a deliberate setup."

"How... why..."

"There's a page addressed to me," Jon said quickly. "More than one, actually. Apparently Mart... Mark placed them randomly throughout his advice for you. And his poetry."

"Please don't read my poetry," Martin said flatly. 

"You need to read this book," Jon said. "There is so much here for one night. More than just the worms and whatever we thought was coming next."

"Anything about punching Elias?" Martin asked. He had a singular focus.

"Some...allusions to it. Martin was still hiding that plan from Jack when he wrote it. I mean, it's only a few pages, really."

"We should talk in person," Jon said. 

Martin fell back on his pillows. "Well, I'm not getting up out of bed, so unless they left you a map and a key..."

Jon didn't answer right away. "Just the map."

"...Christ," Martin said after his own pause. 

"I don't want to impose."

"I imposed on you last night," Martin said, liking the inaccurate but salacious implication sound of it. 

"I don't want to intrude," Jon said. He was a terrible liar. 

"You can bring me the book," Martin said. He disconnected the call, set the phone on the bedside table, and continued to stare up at his bedroom ceiling. He imagined himself anywhere else, actually facing the real dangers instead of just thinking about them. He thought about actually having the courage to do something like repeatedly hit his boss's boss. 

His phone buzzed, but it was just a text from Sasha checking in. He had nothing yet to say. If Jon was leaving work early to check on him, that had to be answer enough.

He considered getting up to unlock the door so Jon could just let himself in since he was so set on coming over. Getting off the bed seemed like a waste of effort. If Jon did actually show up, then at some point Martin would have to get up to avoid being rude. 

Somehow he'd drifted off to sleep when there was the knock at the door. 

_Dear Jonathan Sims,_

Apparently I have to go for the formal beginning. Jon, my Jon, is sitting here trying very hard not to micromanage this letter too much. He was very insistent that I give a formal greeting and that I not say I’m sorry for any kind of lying. That’s the phrasing he’ll allow. It's kind of adorable, and isn't costing me anything to indulge him. His left eye and over half of the other eyes are twitching. That isn't adorable when I write it down, but it's just so...humanizing? If disconnected eyes can be human. Which I say they can, because they're part of him. I've designated myself the official judge of his humanity. It comes up more than I'd like.

He stopped being 100% human before the world ended, yes. He sometimes has a heartbeat when I lay my head on his chest, but I sometimes think he's just making an effort to help me relax. He's not answering that one. (Adorable.)

If you're looking for something that doesn't call you adorable, "Jack" is going to throw in a page to you somewhere in this book but only if he lets me write this already. He's funnier than you. You're funny enough on your own. Young Martin doesn't appreciate that enough. He'll learn.

Another rule "Jack" is telling me: I'm not allowed to make this a statement. You don't need a statement from me. I would like to give you one. Actually, I'd like to hear you read this as a statement, what kind of voice you'd give me and if it would be like your Martin's. Jack doesn't like that idea at all. 

We're in my old flat. I haven't been here since I barricaded myself against the worms. That should be a scarier memory. At this point, it's just one point where everything started. In my timeline, you never came here. I spent two weeks disconnected from the world. You spent two weeks, texting my tormentors and being slightly relieved that I wasn't underfoot. You tried to call, I guess, but the worms just never answered. Rude of them. Communication is important. Face-to-face is best. ...because you never know when horrible parasites are actually texting you equally horrible puns. 

So.

I never loved you while I lived here. I liked you fine, maybe too much given everything. The way you treated me then. I heard the tapes, basically in real-time, so I knew what you thought of me. I didn't fall in love with you until after I had to give up this flat. Which means "Jack" has never been here before! He's not impressed, but I have a wide variety of teas available. He doesn't know how he takes his tea. Adorable. 

This also means, if you're concerned, that you can probably track if my younger self, that alternate, loves you by his address. Anywhere but here, and he probably loves you. "Jack" says this is not a reasonable expectation. He is going to keep reading over my shoulder, apparently. 

Of course, that's always been the way or you wouldn't even be reading a page out of the book I'm going to give young Martin. You always want to know things. What do you plan on doing with this knowledge? You get a peek into the minds of two Martins. You get access to secrets that aren't yours to know. 

Professional secrets: No actual qualifications, no degrees, only 29 years old. I'm inept because I don't know anything. I still think you weren't, you're not giving me a real chance, but it's not like I can make a fuss about it.

Mum got sick ages ago, my father left us 20 years ago and it's just been us. She's… well, she needs me and that's something at least. She needed me. Very past tense, I had to drop out, what, 12 years ago now. Then what? Had to start lying, had to inflate who I was, pretend to be who I'd wanted to be. Fake it till you make it, and here I am. 

The Magnus Institute gave me a shot. Elias gave me a chance. I never understood how he didn't see through it, but I think I get it now. He always saw through me. You didn't. Elias has clearer vision. He wanted something out of me in addition to wanting power over me. There has to be a potential in me somewhere. Part of me wants to ask him what it is now, while I have the chance. Part of me wants to throttle him. Not sure which I'll go for. 

Mum is going to die soon, a matter of months. It's not a surprise. Just, for me, you were dead too. Heartbreak upon heartbreak. You came back and she didn't. Neither really seemed like a surprise at the time. 

I wish you knew how to make a plan. Proactive, reactive, something... think. Apply the knowledge. Connect the dots. Be nicer to all of your assistants. Decide to trust people more. Ask for help. I hope this is enough to snap you out of your skepticism. 

See if Martin will let you see his tea collection before he moves. Or doesn't. Maybe I'm wrong about the address. 

I love you. I forgive you for reading this. I forgive you for all the privacy violations past, present, and future. I really wish you'd try harder to avoid them, but I still forgive and love you. 

_Yours in time,_

_Martin Blackwood_

Jon sat on Martin's couch, sitting up straight, posture unaffected by the cheap furniture. Jon had insisted on reading the letter aloud, treating it like a statement. It wasn't. Martin didn't particularly like the slight alterations to his voice that he used, his impression of Martin.

Martin put the kettle on, checking on it after Jon was done reading. It hadn't been a long statement but worrying about Jon was a reflex. He might strain his voice trying to sound like someone else.

Jon looked up at him, waiting for a reaction. He was still clutching the notebook that was supposed to have so many answers. He was still professionally dressed, the same clothes he'd changed into while Martin was at his flat that very morning. Martin was wearing a T-shirt and sweats. Martin was underdressed in his own home. 

"I'm sorry," Martin said, instead of arguing that he didn't sound like that. He was breaking out into a cold sweat. Every secret he'd tried to keep was unraveling. His life was coming undone. 

"For what?" Jon said.

Martin waved to the notebook. "For him trying to manipulate you."

"What?" Jon said. He was genuinely confused. He didn't see strings being pulled, just a heartfelt confession. 

"He's a liar," Martin said. He knew it because he was one and it didn't look like it had changed any. "I mean, Jack was adorable enough, but the rest of it..."

"Have you listened to my tapes?" Jon said.

Martin was standing over Jon, physically looking down on him. Jon had come to his home. Jon was still in a position of power over him. "Yes, and I do know what you think of me. I don't love you despite it or because of it or anything like that. I just know, and it hurts."

"Where's the lie, then?" Jon said.

"I don't trust them. They took the truth and twisted it to convince us to do what they want, to achieve their goals. They're gone and I don't trust them. I don't trust that anything they said or did was in our best interests. I don't trust anyone who would resort to a random act of violence as a farewell. I don't trust what they wrote."

Jon was frowning at him. He clearly didn't see things that way. He didn't seem to be as horrified at the sudden beating of a middle-aged man. 

Martin reached for real honesty. "I don't trust myself. My actual self and you shouldn't either.”

“Was it true about your mother?”

“Yes. All of that.”

"Between your CV and your poetry, my impression is that your talents lie in fiction,” Jon said. The pity in Jon's voice and face was mixed with a strange kind of pride

"So I am fired after all.” Martin swallowed. Jon didn't answer him. "See, I'm not to be trusted."

Jon stood and stepped towards him. "I trust you." Jon held the notebook out to Martin. 

Martin gingerly took it and immediately set it down. "Anyway, thank you for dropping this off."

Jon and his two ordinary eyes stared up at Martin. Even standing, Martin was still looming over him. "Right, I... you're welcome, of course."

"I really should read this thing now since it sounds like I'm not fired and I'm guessing I'm expected to be in the office tomorrow."

"Tomorrow's Saturday." Jon said. That meant Jon would be working and Martin wouldn't, especially with all this new information. A good chunk of Martin's brain was worried that Jon wouldn't eat if there weren't other people around to remind him of such things. If Martin wasn't around, who would take care of Jon? No one had ever asked, had ever suggested Martin should insert himself into Jon's life like this. He just saw a need and filled it.. 

He wasn't talking and Jon was still standing there. "You don't have to watch me. I'm not going to do anything stupid. I just want to read this notebook and then sleep." Or burn the notebook and sleep.

"We need to talk after you've read it." Jon said. “Please.”

"What, you never realized how wonderful I was until you read all my secrets laid out in this journal?" Martin snapped.

"No," Jon said.

"Then what?" As far as he could tell, Jon might one day mistake gratitude for love. He hated himself for thinking that, for thinking he could only be loved in such a transactional way. That he had to earn it, prove himself worthy. He hated how logical it seemed. 

"It explains...it alludes to how I destroyed the world and what you can do to try and stop me. There are references there, passages that I don't understand because it's supposed to make sense to you. I think it's the key to..."

"Tea," Martin said dully. "Let's have the tea."


	10. water is my eye

Jon drank his tea and tried not to overtly watch Martin reading. Martin didn't move his lips while he read, so it was impossible to tell what sections he was on.He was dressed for relaxation and rest.He'd clearly been in bed when Jon had called.If he'd been having an existential crisis, then this notebook was just going to make it worse.

Martin seemed restless, more agitated than Jon had anticipated. Martin felt things deeper than Jon had given him credit for. Martin's hands were twitching and entire face creasing into a frown.Martin avoided eye contact with Jon, which wasn't anything new. He didn't say anything, not even the usual staggered stream of chatter that ran when he was near Jon.

"Stop staring at me," Martin snapped without looking up.

"Sorry," Jon said.It was a reflex, the only appropriate reply. He wasn't at all sorry. He hadn't stopped doing it.

"You're Beholding me or whatever it is that you'll learn how to do."

"I'm just...waiting for you to speak. I wouldn't do that to you."

"Thank you," Martin said. He didn't look up, just cleared his throat."Thank you for bringing me this.For thinking of me," he added, because he was polite.

"You're welcome."

"Go pick out more tea." Martin waved Jon off to the kitchen.

Jon followed the directions given. He inspected the extensive collection of carefully labeled loose leaf and bags.Jon had warranted a bag. He had his tea, made the same way as always. He wasn't exactly clear on what that technique was.

If Elias fired Martin, that was one thing that Jon would have to learn.He didn't think that Elias would, given what random knowledge Mark had set to paper.Martin had to be extraordinarily useful or Elias would never have hired him at all. 

He could hear the faintest sounds of Martin actually arguing aloud with the notebook. He focused on the distraction he'd been given for as long as he could, before giving up and resuming his self-assigned task of staring at Martin.

Martin's eyes were wet with tears. There were multiple pages torn out of the notebook, some crumpled on the table and others carefully folded. "Jon," he said, his voice breaking. "Why did you read this? Why did you keep reading?"

"Some of it is addressed to me. And Elias, someone called Peter, Tim, Sasha, two police officers, my ex-girlfriend Georgie and her future girlfriend Melanie..." Jon trailed off. Those were the pages folded, less forcefully ripped. They were warning and apologies. Reading those had felt like more of an intrusion than anything else. Listening to Martin confess this to others was less of Jon's concern than Martin's personal feelings.

Jon sat down next to him. He set his mug of tea amongst the pages.

"And a lot of it is private," Martin said. "There is a poem in here about your hands.Why. Why is there a poem about your hands?"

"Apparently they're delicate? But one's burned," Jon said, clenching and unclenching his own (unmarked) hands.

"That's the entire poem!" Martin snapped. Jon flinched at the sudden shouting.Martin was still on the verge of tears. "There is an entire poem dedicated to an accident you had that burnt your hand. It was copied frommemory.Your hand isn't even burnt, and won't be if we work very carefully. No one needed to know or read this poem."

The poetry hadn't been especially good. Jon wanted to chalk it up to the bizarre deadline its writer had been under, but it seemed more to just be his idiosyncratic style.

Martin ripped it out of the notebook, throwing it onto the others. It struck a tape recorder that Jon hadn't seen there.Martin glared at the thing. "Don't you start," he whispered at it, shaking his finger.

"The poetry is only part of it," Jon said.

Martin didn't look at him."This is nothing but an artificial attempt to fill your head with tender feelings based on events that will never happen because I...we... won't let you be hurt like this. You can't just keep the positive effects as we avoid the negative. It's all gone." Martin paused and finally looked up.

Jon waited for whatever new emotional outburst Martin was feeling. He was coming undone.

"Wait, you said Georgie's your ex-girlfriend?"

That seemed so inconsequential compared to everything else. The letter had held very little, mostly referring to this Melanie woman. Georgie and Jon were both bi, a fact that seemed both evident and irrelevant. Jon waved his hand idly. "It was a long time ago."

Martin stared at him, frustration and fear fading away.Nothing replaced them. He'd burned himself out, the flames were gone. He was able to focus on Jon's face without blushing."What..." Martin said. "Why would I even know your ex-girlfriend?"

"I'm guessing she and I became friends again? Or, well, paranormal investigations are kind of a niche.Maybe you met her following up on something? Or you will meet her? I think you'd like Georgie."

Jon hadn't ever thought about it before. He didn't think about Georgie, didn't think about life before trying to be the archivist at all. There were some rather superficial similarities between the two.Georgie was kind, but not in the same way as Martin. She wouldn't set herself on fire to keep someone else warm. Jon couldn't conceive of Martin not liking anyone. 

Martin's blankness was replaced with a frustrated frown. "Any of the others besides her?"

"What?" Jon asked.He had to laugh. He'd never thought that Martin was the jealous type, but that slotted in nicely with his growing mental sketch. 

"I was just...wondering what the thread was," Martin said, the blankness back. "Have you dated any of the others?"

"I think the repeated warnings to stay away from the Institute make the connection clear." Jon picked up his mug of tea, just to have something to do, something else to look at. 

"Right, of course.The Beholding. It's been a long day."

Jon didn't explain that he'd been thinking of Martin. "Did you get some sleep before I came? Eat? I know you didn't sleep well on my couch, and I certainly didn't feed you..."

"It doesn't matter." Martin shrugged. "I'm thinking of just slowly fading away. Seems easier than sleep."

The chill that came over Jon was just in his head. He gripped his mug tighter. "That's addressed too." He wasn't sure if everything described with the Lonely was literal and or an attempt at poetic depiction of grief. 

"Yes, Jon. I know." Martin didn't put the book down, just haphazardly closed it without marking the page."The next handful of months of my life are addressed and then the world will end if Elias isn't stopped. I can see why Mark punched him. I just don't see what good it did."

"Apparently it was important that Elias know that were on to him?"

"We're not. We have some vague notes and a secretive plan to punch him behind the Archivist's back." Martin tore another page out. "Whatever long term effect that has won't be good for me personally.I don't know how it'll affect, you know, everyone else in the world, but I can't imagine it'll help anything."

Jon wanted very much to reassure Martin.He didn't know how to do it, what people did in circumstances like this.A pat on the shoulder seemed like the wrong kind of physical contact, but it sparked a thought.

Jon wanted to lean forward and kiss him.It seemed almost like it would be the right gesture.It would express concern and camaraderie and all kinds of positive emotions. It would foster hope.Jon wasn't in love, wasn't really even having a crush, but the idea had been planted that Martin would be a good person, the right person for Jon to fall in love with. 

It was a bad idea, doomed to failure. He couldn't just kiss Martin. He didn't see any way that he could ever confess any tender feelings, if and when they did develop.The words weren't there.

"I just know we're going to run behind in their footsteps or fall on our faces," Martin said."We're not going to do anything new, just follow what little they've told us about."

"So you've been saying." Jon put his mug back down so he could lay his hand on Martin's. He needed to stop Martin from tearing another page.

"Would you like to apologize for reading this?" Martin said.

"Not particularly," Jon said. He'd never been a good liar so there didn't seem to be any point in trying. From what the notebook said, Martin was a terrified success at it.

Martin closed his eyes, breaking their brief eye contact. "Why are you here?"

"To bring you the book."

"Why are you still here?" Martin said. "The delivery's complete. You did."

"I thought you could use a friend."

Martin's laugh was bitter and harsh, a nettle pushed into Jon's ears."Really?"

Jon leaned forward, thinking he was just going to lightly brush his lips against Martin's.Instead, Jon ran his unburnt (never to be burnt) hand through Martin's hair so he could pull Martin closer. Martin kissed him back, which was a relief and then a terror. Jon let go, pulled back.It was just supposed to be one kiss.…

Martin smiled, balancing the sweetness and promise that Jon had been trying to achieve. "Sorry," he said.It didn't make any sense.

"No, I'm sorry," Jon said, "I just..."

"You kissed me," Martin said wonderingly.

"You're so upset."

Martin laughed again.He seemed to be verging on hysteria."This is what you like?"

"No," Jon said, his voice sharp enough to cut through the tangled mess that was Martin's own.

Martin smiled at Jon, a sad little smile, and kissed his cheek. "Thank you for the thought."

"It wasn't... I didn't just do it to cheer you up."

"Post-hypnotic suggestion from a time traveler's poetry?"

Jon moved in for another chaste kiss. He hoped this one would offer up some kind of explanation. It wasn't as clarifying as he would have liked, but it was something.

Martin first kissed him back, then pulled away. "That's not exactly helping me get my thoughts in order," Martin said. He ran his thumb across his lower lip. "I need some tea. Are you alright?"

Jon nodded. He didn't take another drink from his mug, just sat and waited for something to fall into place.

Martin fled the room. Jon eyed the torn pages on the table, wondering which had been so abhorrent to Martin. He hadn't read each and every one of them before he invited himself over. He wanted to know so badly.

He resisted, convinced himself that he would find out in due time.


	11. keep thinking about his angel eyes

Martin rarely if ever saw Tim and Sasha outside of work, never on a weekend.Things were different this Saturday. Tim seemed to want to cling to the others, as if they weren't going to drown too.  So he'd invited the other two out for coffee.

Martin did a little reconnaissance first, a little hands-on research into thins that his future self had warned him about in that damnable notebook.Jon had asked to take the torn ones with him when he left Martin's flat on Friday night.Then Jon had asked

They met up a little coffeeshop that Martin knew and liked. It was one that he'd be alright with never being able to return to, in case something strange happened to them.

"You okay?" Tim asked. That was a bit of projection.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Yesterday, you seemed a bit..." Tim trailed off.

Martin didn't want to explain about Jon violating all of their privacy by reading the notebook before trying to cheer Martin up by kissing him.There was no part of that sequence of events that Martin could comfortably explain, especially out in public.

"He wrote... he wrote a lot." He patted the notebook on the table before him. "Like, both of you get weird paradoxical letters." Martin handed them over. He sat patiently while they read. He'd glanced at them, but tried not to read too closely.They weren't for him, for all that they were going to be written by approximately him.

"It's just an apology." Tim said. "A really vaguely worded one."

"My letter says he never realized I was so beautiful."Sasha smiled at Martin so happily he immediately had to tone it down.

"Still gay, sorry," Martin said, allowing a blush to come across his features. Tim choked on his tea.Martin patted him on the back. 

"I'm still going to take the compliment," Sasha said. "It also says he left my sweater at your flat?"

"I can bring it on Monday."Martin said.

"You coming in then?" Tim said. He winced as Sasha kicked him under the table.

Martin shrugged. "Elias hasn't called me at home to tell me not to come in on Monday."

"Not like Jon would either." Tim said.

Butter wouldn't melt in Martin's mouth. No flush to the face, no more than the usual stammer. He coolly said: "I can't even imagine Jon doing that."

"Jack left us a lot of directions, a lot of things to go on." Sasha said."We just need to follow what he's set out. Don't touch anything, don't talk to strangers, just..."

"Do our job of touching spooky things and talking to spooky strangers?" Martin said.

"Right," Tim said.

"We're doomed," Martin said.

"Hardly," Sasha said. "Things are going to change."

"Jack wasn't omniscient," Martin said. "He didn't know Mark was going to punch Elias."

"Mark was his blindspot," Tim said.

It was a thought that Martin had bene trying not to have. He wasn't sure what it meant, just that it seemed significant in a way he wasn't prepared to process."That... seemed like a choice he was continuing to make."

"Or he was just trying to make Mark feel comfortable?" Sasha said.

"You didn't see his face," Martin said. "He really didn't think Mark was going to do it."

"No one thinks you're capable of that," Tim said. It was soothing. It was a lie, and a bad one.

"Not yet.Mark's so different than me and it's only a few years until... I'm supposed to be him?" The difference appeared to be that mark was able to say and do the things that Martin kept tightly bottled up.Mark had already lost everything, he wasn't scrabbling to keep hold of things that had never really been his.He had nothing to lose but Jack.

"Got a letter of your own?" Sasha said.

Martin nodded.

"Did Jon?" Tim asked,

"Yes, of course," Martin said.

Tim laughed. "I don't want to be there when you hand it over."

Martin tried to figure out how much to say, to admit, to confess. "Already been delivered," he said. "Jon might be... going into full conspiracy mode." Martin said.

"Beholding?" Sasha said.

"I don't think Jon's doing that yet," Martin said, not at all certain.

"Right. All of Jack's frantic work," Sasha said.

"So. How are we going to not die?" Tim said.

"Incredibly carefully," Martin said. "It's...the timeline is so quick."

"Listen, we've not died up until this point, right?" Tim said. "Just keep doing that."

"Jack..."

"Was a very enthusiastic statement giver with a lot of ideas," Tim said. "And apparently a violent boyfriend."

"Hey.That's not a fair characterization."

"That's not you," Sasha said.

"It is the weekend, we are taking a break from our spooky job--" Tim said.

"Possibly forever," Martin said,

"Hush," Tim said. "I say we have mass quantities of drink."

"I'm game," Sasha said, as if it wasn't a setup from the start.

"Martin?" Tim said, waggling his eyebrows.

"I don't know," Martin said, blushing.

"This isn't... I'm not trying to... Sash, help." Tim seemed to be getting more and more flustered by the second. It was. Good look.Martin liked it, liked having caused it.That was a train of thought to be examined later.

"Tim's not propositioning you," Sasha said. "I'm a chaperone to ensure it."

"Your beauty aside," Martin said. "I wasn't thinking any... that wasn't my problem. We just went as a team, what, two nights ago now?"

Sasha nodded. "Exactly. A coping mechanism for time travel weirdness has been established."

"I suppose. It could be nice," Martin said.

"This bit might be actually awkward.Martin, mate, if it's alright, i was thinking about inviting the boss, too," Tim said, looking charmingly embarrassed in a way that Martin could never quite pull off. "Jon, not Elias!" Tim added, the charm briefly dropped.

"Why?"

"Why not Elias?" Tim said, wincing as Sasha kicked him. "Jon's had a hell of a week too."

"You're not wrong," Sasha said. "At last our future selves are...will....used to be going to be dead." She was stone sober and the very idea of time travel had muddled her words. "We didn't have to deal with the whole 'double' concept.

"No, I mean why would you ask me if it's alright?" Martin asked, no subtle strings being pulled.

"Don't know how you feel about... bosses in general today," Tim mumbled. "And Jons in general."

"I like Jon, that hasn't changed," Martin said.He ignored the obvious significant glance between the two. "You're right, of course, and he's hardly going to relax unless someone makes him. I just have a couple errands I need to run first."

"Anything that can't wait until tomorrow?"

"What, start now?" Martin asked,

"Day drinking is a marvelously underrated concept."

"And it's not even all that early now," Sasha said.

"Same pub?" Martin asked. He looked down at his t-shirt and jeans. "I'm hardly dressed for..."

"Jon?" Sasha said brightly.

They didn't know, it was just residual teasing.

"I'm sure he won't mind," Tim said. "Or notice."

Jon was already at the pub when they got there.It was the closest one to the institute, again.One that they all knew and felt vaguely comfortable with.He was at the bar, beer half-drunk, actively not checking the time.

"Of course he'd be early," Tim muttered.

Jon was wearing a button down shirt and jeans. In deference to the concept of a weekend, the top buttons were undone. It seemed unlikely that he'd been actually inside the Institute with collarbones almost visible like that.

Martin had thoughts that wee improper and impossible. The improper thoughts involved just kissing Jon up against a wall. The impossible thoughts involved starting with that and escalating further. Jon definitely wouldn't want the escalation for a variety of reasons not entirely related to Martin. Just kissing also seemed out.

"Good boss!" Tim cried. He was trying to balancing his own approach with deference to Martin's outstanding fears. He clapped Jon on the back.

Jon was sitting next to Martin. It seemed like it had been Jon's own orchestration, inasmuch that Jon just sat down next to Martin. Martin was trying to read too much there.

Sasha and Tim were up, ready to fetch food and drink.They were giving Jon and Martin a chance to talk privately. They did not seem to know that Jon had come to Martin's apartment, the amount of privacy violation that Jon was willing to engage in.

The second they were alone, Jon kissed Martin's cheek. It burned where his lips had touched Martin's skin, and then Martin's whole face burned.

Jon pulled back. "I don't want to have sex with you."

"I know, Jon. It's not me, it's you.I understand."

"I do want to kiss you again," Jon said softly.

"You just did, Jon."

"Right, so, again again."

"God, you're drunk already," Martin said.He focused on staring at the table before him.

"Are you familiar with the general idea of in vino veritas?" Jon said, his voice crisper than it had been. "I know your Latin isn't that good, which makes sense considering..."

"No," Martin said. "What is it?"

"In wine, there is truth," Jon said. Martin looked up at his brown eyes, not a trace of green to be seen.Not a trace of dishonesty to be seen.

"So, you're at least a bit drunk to be this truthful?" Martin said.

Jon shrugged. "I can sober up, Martin. And I can be truthful without being under the influence."

"Is this your new hobby then? Kiss the least appealing assistant?" Martin's words cut his lips as he said them.

Sasha was pretty. Jon felt guilty about stealing her job.Jon had an ex-girlfriend. These facts kept resolving into an unlikely tryst that was stuck in a part of Martin's considerable imagination. He was inventing things to be jealous of.

As Jack's influence, whatever it has been, wore off then Jon would go back to being more and more his sharp old self. He was no longer draping himself in Martin's general direction.Jon was just scowling. "I should think you'd give both of us more credit than that, Martin," Jon said.He suddenly seemed much more sober than Martin he assumed.

"Just doesn't seem plausible," Martin said.

Jon didn't seem interested in offering explanations or reassurances. "Where are the others?"

"Getting food, giving us space to reconnect or something."

"That just seems cruel," Jon muttered.

"I found a book at this weird bookshop in SoHo for you," Martin said. "Not a Leitner. It just sort of... talks about this all.Old book." He was blathering.

"Thank you," Jon said, even though he hadn't actually received the book yet. Martin was hesitant to produce it from his bag at a pub, of beer getting spilled on it.

"The bookshop itself might be worth looking into, I'll check Jack's notes."

It was only a few more minutes, or a few hundred years, until the others returned.Sasha has drinks, Tim had food to be shared. Both distributed their collections.

"Are we brainstorming how to approach what might be the remaining years of our life?" Jon said.

"You live."

"I'm not so sure," Jon said. "Mark wrote me a letter that sometimes Jack had a heartbeat just for Mark to listen to."

"You need this drink," Tim said nudging the glass towards Jon.

"Yes, I think I do."


	12. make my black eyes blue

Monday morning, Martin came into the office on time, dressed in as near a suit as he ever wore. Jon nodded in approval, before hiding away in his office. When she got in, Sasha grinned. After a decent interval, Tim brought him tea.

Martin did very little useful work.He was clearly waiting for the other shoe to drop.Jon wanted to shield him, if only to get him back to some kind of productivity.

He didn't care much deeper than that. He wasn't going to kiss Martin again. They had the world to save. Jon's vague understanding was that emotional distance was going to keep them both safe in the short term.He needed to stay focused as much as possible.

"Knock, knock," Elias said.Jon looked up from the files before him as Elias walked into the office. Elias knew. He knew what those words, that simple announcement of presence meant.He knew what Jon was thinking. He Knew Everything, with very few exceptions.It was clear that Elias had lost a fight badly.The bruising on his face showed that he was healing nicely."Hello, Jon."

"Good morning, Elias," Jon said, straightening the papers. He waved generally to the chair for guests and other intruders. 

Elias sank into the chair like it was the single most comfortable piece of furniture that he'd ever experienced. He closed his eyes and just let everything relax.

"What can I do for you?"

"Just thought I'd pop by, see how things are going," Elias said, as chummy as ever. Jon hated that tone. "How's it going with the team?"

"Fine," Jon said immediately.

"Everyone here this morning?"

"Of course," Jon said in earnest confusion. He didn't know why they wouldn't be.It wasn't Martin who'd done anything wrong. He'd seemed to have pulled himself together when he halfheartedly hugged everyone (including Jon) goodbye on Saturday.Jon hadn't heard from him on Sunday, which had to mean that things were back to normal. 

"Good." Elias leaned forward. "Do let me know if anything changes."

"How are you feeling, Elias?" Jon said, much too brightly. "I should've asked when you first came in."

"I wouldn't expect that from you."

"Thank you? I'm sorry?" Jon chuckled to himself. "I'm really not sure how to take that."

"I wouldn't worry about it," Elias said.

"I apologize for any disruption my uncle Jack caused last week.He was briefly separated from his husband, but they've reconciled and won't be coming around here for quite some time."

"Uncle," Elias repeated, his voice crisp as always.

"Yes," Jon said.It was one syllable but he was still amazed that his voice didn't break as he said it.He was a terrible liar.

Elias wasn't believing him for a second. "The man who looked like you if..."

"If I was heavily marked?" Jon said.It was an honest statement, honestly sardonic and sarcastic.

"With the scars, yes, since you mention it," Elias said. 

"That is my uncle. Jack.Jonathan really."

"Named after him?" Elias said.

Jon could only shrug and smirk and avoid looking Elias in the still blackened eye. "I really don't know a lot about my father's family," he said.He couldn't see if Elias winced as people often did when they heard the tale of the poor orphan. 

"And I suppose this husband of his was that pair of fists aimed for my face?" Elias said.

"I'm afraid so. I apologize for that as well.He has some kind of grudge against the institute. I promise you, I didn't know he would ever do anything like that."

"Nor did your uncle." Elias smiled, like a shark or other predator would. An involuntary baring of the teeth, demonstrating his power over Jon as well as the fact that Mark didn't break one of them.

"Jack has too much respect for the integrity of our work to ever do anything like that."

"Too afraid," Elias translated.Jon understood Mark's desire to punch that face. 

"That too," Jon said.

"So, your uncle that looks like you is married to a brawler who looks just like our dear little Martin."

"Apparently..." Jon said, trying his best not to blush or squirm or give himself away. 

"Your family does seem to go for a certain type," Elias said.

"I don't know what you mean," Jon said.

"I think you know that I consider myself an observant man, Jon," Elias said.

"Yes. Of course," Jon said. "You'd hardly be in charge here if you weren't."

"I know your man Jack decided to contribute to our work here. I'm glad for it.Extra eyes are always good for us."

"Right," Jon said, thinking of Jack's green eyes, two in their normal configuration.

"Well, I'll leave you to it," Elias said. "I know it's a lot try to take in.Best to try little chunks at once. If I were you, I'd have Martin take the Web.He had a much better handle on it than you think. 

"I'll take that into consideration," Jon said. Elias was trying to make him doubt Martin or keep him at arm's length or something.Jon didn't trust it.

"I think your uncle disrupted your life more than mine," Elias said."And that really is saying something. Don't throw yourself too much into work, Jon. I need you too much to let you burn out completely."

"I'll try," Jon said.

"But maybe don't get too chummy with your team.I know Gertrude felt she functioned much better when she didn't rely so completely on assistants."

"Gertrude left the system in complete chaos," Jon said, reviving an old complaint. "I won't be able to do anything else until I get this sorted."

"Anything including advance your uncle's suggested research?"

"I'm afraid so," Jon said. "I need to get the team on the same page."

"That's a good idea.You've got a good team, Jon.Hold onto those three as long as you can."

"I'll do my best," Jon said. It was a promise he intended to keep.

Elias abruptly stood. "Well, I'll let you get back to it."

As soon as Elias left, Jon went to check in on his invaluable team. They'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop.Tim and Sasha were dressed down.Sasha had the green sweater that represented everything that she had thought she wanted. She stayed seated at her desk.Tm had been vaguely hovering, he leaned against her desk. 

Martin stood behind his own desk.Martin was dressed up. He looked so different it spoiled the look. "We haven't made much headway," Martin said.He wasn't calm, but he didn't seem any more shaken up than usual. 

"What did Elias have to say?" Sasha asked.

"Elias knows, no one's fired, we are not completely fucked," Jon said brightly.

Tim and Martin exchanged a shocked and concerned look. "I'd ask 'who are you and what did you do with Jon?' but I really don't think that would be funny right now," Sasha said.

Jon gave the sarcastic question more consideration than it deserved. "I've been feeling a little disorientated the last few days," Jon said. "I think I'm coming back to myself."

"Fantastic," Tim said.

"Can we help?" Martin said.

With that little question, Jon forgot all about the other two. "Are you not feeling this?" Jon said.

"I am," Martin said with his little laugh. "It's easy to push it down. I don't have to think about it.I can just be who I'm supposed to be."

Jon laughed. "I can't do that. I can't compartmentalize. I've never had to."

"It's easy enough once you get into the habit," Martin said.Jon could tell that was meant to be reassuring. Instead it was more unsettling.Jon couldn't bring himself to look away from Martin, so he couldn't gauge the reaction of the others.

Tim cleared his throat. "What's the plan?"

"None of us can ever go to America." Jon said.

"Okay, sure," Tim said.

"Or the tunnels." Jon said.

"That one is actually something we might end up doing," Sasha said. 

"Never," Jon said sternly. He held her gaze for too long for his own comfort. She had to hate it even more.

"Never, got it."

"Connect the dots, but really.Try to be as passive as possible.Don't directly interfere, interact.Don't interview the wrong people."

"They left us a list, didn't they?" Sasha said.

"It's in the blue folder on your desk," Martin said, waving towards it.Sasha picked it up, idly reviewing it. 

Jon frowned at her. "I think we don't need to go over everything today.Desk work should suffice."

"Busy work, you mean," Tim said.

"Exactly," Jon said. "Of course, I leave it to your judgment, but I will not be asking for anything specific today,I just want... peace and quiet."

"We'll see what we can do," Martin said.

"Thank you," Jon said, as sincerely as he could.


	13. yours are the sweetest eyes

Monday dragged on forever. Martin was being Professional, which just made everything seem worse. Martin felt overdressed, sitting and waiting for someone to talk hm out the door.He had to be fired, it had to be coming.

Jon was upset with him for trying to handle it all in his own way, in the smart way. There was no longer any trace of the strangers, the inhuman Jon and violent Martin, left. There had barely been any, but the whisper of their presence was gone. Left behind was just terrible knowledge of things to come and the faint promise of things that could be.

Tim and Sasha ducked out early, inviting Martin along. He felt like he would have been a third wheel, again.Jon had told them to take it easy, and they were going to oblige him. Martin stayed to make sure Jon actually left.

He tried to write another resignation letter. As with everything that he wrote, the writing turned out to be the easiest part. He couldn't bring himself to turn them in, to actually have another soul cast their eyes on his finished work. He tore and crumpled the page, same as he'd been doing all weekend.

Elias stopped him in the hall when he went to check on Jon. He didn't look quite as broken as Martin had expected."Martin, I thought I'd find you here."

"Elias." Martin kept his voice as even as he could. He was deferential without any fear. 

Elias looked Martin up and down, the force of his eyes leaving a crawling trail on Martin's body.They were a pair of slugs sliming their way along; Martin could all but feel their weight. "You're looking very smart today," Elias said. "I know we keep things very relaxed in the Archives to cope, but I do think that this is better for our public-facing image."

"Is that what you wanted to talk to me about, sir?"

Elias looked behind him to Jon's door. "I think the three of us are the only ones left in this part of the building."

"Yes. Sir." Martin said. "That seems likely, it's getting late. I was just going to check in on the third person."

"Jon can wait," Elias said. Martin tried not to look in the older, shorter man's bruised face."Do you know why I hired you?"

"No." Martin said. "I've never known," he managed to stammer. 

"Mm, honesty," Elias said, rafting the words. "This experience has had an effect on you."

"They were invisible to you." Martin said.

Elias considered this carefully, shaking his head just a little.He was not physically blocking Martin's progress in any real way."Opaque rather than transparent, perhaps."

"He surprised you. They surprised you." Martin said.

"I don't think you should dwell on that," Elias warned.

"Yes, sir.Sorry sir. Arnica is supposed to be good for bruises, sir."

"Thank you, I haven't had much direct experience with bruising.I suppose you have?" It was a shot in the dark, when Elias was supposed to have night vision goggles. He was deliberately being clumsy, trying to goad Martin into reacting.

Martin was getting paranoid. That alone could play into whatever game Elias was playing. "Not really," Martin said. "You just learn things when you research."

"Martin," Elias chided.He wouldn't move, wouldn't go away. "I asked you if you know why I hired you."

"I don't know." Martin's attention stayed focused on Jon's door.It was the right kind of door.

"I saw great potential in you.It just needs to be properly developed. I wish you'd ask more questions, Martin. You'd be so much more useful to me if you were just that touch more inquisitive. You don't seek out knowledge for its own sake.You want to know things if there's a purpose behind it, even if the only purpose is to make a connection with others. I don't think you should become too attached to Jon. He seems a bit accident prone, a bit too trusting. He asks questions of everything. Not like you."

"I'm your backup archivist?" Martin said. 

"Jon is more qualified in the specific ways I'm looking for."

"Tim and Sasha?" Martin asked. "They're more qualified too, aren't they? Isn't everyone here?"

"Don't worry about them. Worry about yourself. You have so much potential of your own. I won't fight anyone to keep you, but you do work for me at my pleasure."

"I'm not fired?" Martin said. He couldn't resign, couldn't beg Elias to release him. He was trapped. He was still focused on the door beyond. Jon was just a few steps away, unless he'd stepped out for a cigarette again. 

"Of course not," Elias said. "You really have been doing excellent work, all things considered."

"Thank you, Elias, I appreciate it, and I'm just going to check in on Jon now.Are we done?"

"For now." Elias smiled broadly. "Was there anything you wanted to ask or tell me, Martin?"

Martin was physically unable to tell Elias that he was resigning.  He just shook his head. Elias walked away. 

Martin opened the door to Jon's office, quickly shutting it behind him in case Elias decided to linger.Jon barely looked up from the stack of Jack's notes he was still trying to organize. "Who were you talking to?" Jon said, sounding ever so casual about it.

"Elias was just trying to remind me that I work for him," Martin said.

Jon looked up. "If I'd known that's who that was, I would've come out. Are you alright?"

"I...what?" Martin said. He didn't know what exactly Jon meant and he certainly didn't want to ask."I think we've established I could take him in a fight, haven't we?"

"Mm," Jon said, steadying himself.

Martin loosened his tie, undid the top button of his shirt, and took a deep breath. Jon smiled crookedly, then returned to his notes. Martin saw him, saw what he was doing.Trying to keep himself distanced.Martin didn't want to run after Jon, but he was just trying to bridge the gap between them. He was still standing just inside Jon's office, trying to find the right words to express himself.

"So, it seems pretty definite that I work for him, that's he's the one who decides if I remain at the Institute or not," Martin said.

"So it would seem," Jon said.

"So, that means it's not inappropriate for you and I..." Martin said.

Jon sat up straight at that, but didn't look to Martin. "It was an inappropriate gesture on my part," he said.

Martin wanted to kiss Jon again. Kissing seemed easier than speaking. He could just take a few steps, lean down over Jon. It would be so much simpler to accomplish than this. "But that was over a day ago.Today, tonight...Are you free for dinner?"

"Is that a joke?" Jon said, static laced into his words.There came a click from his cluttered desk.

Martin sat down in the available chair. He kept his eyes focused on Jon,not the tape recorder. Jon was the one he wanted to listen to him. The words tumbled out of Martin's mouth more orderly than if he'd been allowed to organize them for himself."No, of course not. You're not, strictly speaking, my boss any more.You've had to be the one to initiate what little contact we've had so I wanted to ask you to dinner. Elias just sold me on the idea, which may or may not have been why he was planning. I want to spend time alone with you, away from this place. And you can always use a solid meal."

The tape recorder clicked off.Jon focused on it. "I'm doing it again."

Martin leaned back in the chair. "Are they still following you too?" Martin said.

"Residual from Jack," Jon said.He licked his lips. "Martin--"

"Have dinner with me," Martin said. He was free from whatever compulsion the tape had. He needed Jon to know that this was him, his own idea.

"I think I liked it as a question better," Jon said, straightening small stacks of paper to put away. 

"Sorry," Martin said.

Jon sighed. "I look at you and I see...them. A potential future.Journal entries you'll never write, notes I'll never take."

Martin nodded.

Jon appeared to be pleased with the state of his desk.He focused on Martin. "Where are we going?"

"Sorry?" Martin said.

"For dinner," Jon said. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know. I can't think of anywhere. I didn't think you'd say yes."

"Really?" Jon said, sounding genuinely surprised. "And here I thought that's why you were dressed so nicely."

Martin laughed."I just...wanted to keep my job.Then I didn't, but I did."

"I like your suit," Jon added. "Well, not... it doesn't suit you."

Martin took his tie off completely. "Better?"

Jon nodded solemnly. Martin handed over the crumpled accessory. Jon shut it in a desk drawer. "So you weren't trying to impress me?"

"Constantly," Martin said. "Just... right now, I don't have any kind of plan."

"We'll think of something as we go along," Jon said. He stood. "Ready to go?"

"You...are you sure?" Martin asked. He was physically looking up to Jon in that moment.

Jon hesitated, losing all surety. "Do you want to change your clothes? ...change your mind?"

"No! No, everything's fine," Martin said. Without the tape's influence, his words were comingout in pieces. He scrambled to his feet. "No, this will be fine, let's... let's go."

Martin made sure that they left through the normal door, that no others popped up around them.Martin was looking for strange doors wherever he went. He didn't want to be tricked.

When they stepped outside, they were hit with fresh air. "Mind if I smoke?" Jon asked. He already had a cigarette in his mouth, gingerly held so he could make his feint at courtesy.

"Yes, actually," Martin said.

Jon arched an eyebrow.He took the cigarette out of his mouth, replaced it with its brethren, and put them all away. "I did quit. Jack got me smoking again."

"Jack got his hand burnt from a handshake. You probably shouldn't make all the same decisions that he did."

Jon smiled.It looked so sweet on him, and there was so little but so much to lose. Martin quickly kissed him. "Another reason not to smoke?" Jon said.

"Something like that," Martin said. "Let's go get a bite."

Neither saw the new door open in the outer wall of the Institute. If they had seen it, they would (most likely) have continued away. Not running headlong into danger seemed to be the smartest and safest option before them.


End file.
